Improving Institutional Trust in Times of Pandemics

The onset of 2020 found Covid-19 spreading throughout the world. Policymakers employed diverse methods to minimize the outbreak’s impact. Political trust appeared to be a crucial determinant of virus control. Where political trust was high, the citizens tended to abide by the governmental guidelines. Recognizing the importance of political trust in the process of dealing with health emergencies, this project aims at designing methods for restoring political trust.

The proposed Centre will highlight the intra-systemic elements of political trust in EU and Asian countries that managed to vaccinate high, medium, and low proportions of their populations. Having detected how political trust rendered the inoculation rates more successful in some administrations than others, this project will then proceed with conducting an inter-systemic comparison between the case studies in Europe and Asia.

The role of the EU Institutions and the endeavor of the EU to achieve high vaccination rates across the EU will be clearly emphasized. Based on the intra-systemic and inter-systemic analysis, the project will propose methods for rebuilding political trust and increasing public compliance with governmental guidelines during health crises. This project is foremost expected to be useful for policymakers who deal with the containment of pandemics.

Academics, early-career scholars, students, and the general public will also benefit from the project. To enhance the outreach and maximize the project's impact, the lessons drawn from its findings will form the basis for the construction of two freely accessible MOOCs. One of these courses will instruct policymakers on how to restore trust during pandemics. The target audience of the second course will be the general public which will be instructed on how to best respond to future pandemics.