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"Stoker, Gerry"
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Lack of Trust, Conspiracy Beliefs, and Social Media Use Predict COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
As COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out across the world, there are growing concerns about the roles that trust, belief in conspiracy theories, and spread of misinformation through social media play in impacting vaccine hesitancy. We use a nationally representative survey of 1476 adults in the UK between 12 and 18 December 2020, along with 5 focus groups conducted during the same period. Trust is a core predictor, with distrust in vaccines in general and mistrust in government raising vaccine hesitancy. Trust in health institutions and experts and perceived personal threat are vital, with focus groups revealing that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is driven by a misunderstanding of herd immunity as providing protection, fear of rapid vaccine development and side effects, and beliefs that the virus is man-made and used for population control. In particular, those who obtain information from relatively unregulated social media sources-such as YouTube-that have recommendations tailored by watch history, and who hold general conspiratorial beliefs, are less willing to be vaccinated. Since an increasing number of individuals use social media for gathering health information, interventions require action from governments, health officials, and social media companies. More attention needs to be devoted to helping people understand their own risks, unpacking complex concepts, and filling knowledge voids.
Journal Article
Can the governance paradigm survive the rise of populism?
The governance paradigm has provided a dominant way of thinking about how to govern and found reflection in practice with the increased use of partnerships, networks and markets to deliver public services and programmes. The emergence of populism as a political force, however, calls into question the thinking behind the governance paradigm and some of its favoured tools for governing. Populism sees the task of governing in very different terms to that of the advocates and practitioners of governance. This article explores the populist challenge to governance. It shows that gaps in its analysis of a changed environment left the governance paradigm potentially open to populist attack. It explores how the governance paradigm might adapt to survive by developing either a more technical or a political dynamic to its presentation.
Journal Article
Improving the political judgement of citizens: why the task environment matters
Internal political efficacy (that is, beliefs about one's ability to process and participate effectively in politics) is known to be shaped by factors such as levels of interest in politics, trust in institutions and awareness of political developments and debates. In this article, we show that the task environment also has an impact on internal political efficacy, and that little research has been done on this issue. We draw on data from focus groups in Australia, where citizens were asked to make political judgements in contrasting task environments: state elections and the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite. We examine four features of task environments: framing choice; issue content; the nature of available cues; and whether the task environment stimulates cognitive effort. We conclude that concerns about the internal political efficacy of voters should be addressed by exploring how the task environment created for political choice might be made more amenable in order to improve the political judgement of citizens.
Journal Article
Centralized or Decentralized
The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects across the world, yet different countries have had varying degrees of success in their attempts to manage it. One of the reasons behind the different outcomes observed so far lies in the strengths and weaknesses of different governance arrangements leveraged to tackle the crisis. In this article we examine what we can learn about the operational capacity of different democracies through their early responses to the crisis. We provide a framework of four positive qualities of multilevel governance that might lead to greater chances of positive practical outcomes and present an illustrative case study of the experiences of Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK). We conclude with some areas for further research and investigation.
Journal Article
Translating Experiments into Policy
It is in their potential policy relevance that experiments may make their strongest contribution to innovation and progress in political science. Yet there are good grounds for thinking that the policy world has in place a number of barriers that can limit the impact of experimental evidence. Moreover, some experimenters seem to approach the business of influencing policy with spectacular naivety. In modern democratic societies, engaging with the policy process is a complex and demanding activity. In order to make advances in this quarter, experimenters will need to develop their methods and practices in field experiments and extend their strategies to deal with the demands of a complex policy world.
Journal Article
Rethinking the role of experts and expertise in behavioural public policy
Nudge and behavioural public policy tools have won support from governments across the world for improving the effectiveness of public interventions. Yet nudge still attracts strong criticisms for promoting paternalism and manipulation as legitimate government actions. To move beyond this divide, this paper offers a comprehensive reorientation, which is necessary because the intellectual foundations of the policy are at fault. A more secure foundation can be achieved by expanding the cognitive scope of behavioural policy, and ensuring that it does not rely on the narrow assumption that intuitive reasoning is flawed and that expert advice is always preferable. This shift in the cognitive range of nudge moves behavioural policy toward citizen reflection and initiative, pointing away from expert-led interventions. It amounts to more than incremental advances in nudge practice. As a result, nudge can escape the charge of not respecting individual autonomy. What we call 'nudge plus' would link more closely with other types of governmental intervention that embrace citizen involvement.
Journal Article