The Effects of COVID-19 on External Political Efficacy

• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211041322
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Bert Baumgaertner,Markie Rae McBrayer,Florian Justwan
• Date: 01 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 50(1) 97 –107

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211041322

American Politics Research

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211041322

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Article

Introduction

External political efficacy is the feeling that the political

process is responsive to an individual’s participation. It is

reflected in whether “public officials care about what people

like me think.” Efficacy can be affected by the social and

political environment, such as one’s party winning a recent

election, policy offerings, or a localized disaster (Atkeson &

Maestas, 2012; Bowler & Donovan, 2002; Wolak, 2018).

In this paper, we address two gaps in the literature. First,

while extant analyses have made important contributions to

our understanding of efficacy, we still know very little about

how public health crises affect individuals’ external effi-

cacy. It is well known that global health emergencies can

influence various political attitudes, such as trust in govern-

ment (Albertson & Gadarian, 2015; Bol et al., 2021; Schraff,

2020). Curiously, though, the impact of these types of events

on political efficacy has not received any attention in the

literature. This is particularly salient, as the World Health

Organization (WHO) has identified five “Public Health

Emergenc[ies] of International Concern” in the past decade

alone (Wilder-Smith & Osman, 2020). This demonstrates

that these types of crises represent prominent features of the

contemporary political landscape, and as we suggest here,

they likely have the ability to affect political attitudes, includ-

ing efficacy.

Second (and relatedly), this paper contributes to the

broader literature on disaster responses. Existing work on the

connections between national disaster response and efficacy

has thus far focused exclusively on the context of localized

extreme-weather events. Atkeson and Maestas (2012), for

instance, explore the impact of Hurricane Katrina on politi-

cal efficacy in the United States. While their analysis demon-

strates that people’s evaluations of governmental disaster

response can influence individuals’ efficacy, it is not clear

that this relationship applies to other types of issues and cri-

sis contexts. Using the United States as our case study, we

investigate the effects of disaster management on political

efficacy in the context of the 2020 COVID public health

crisis.

In this research, we focus on external efficacy.1

Theoretically, we expect that individuals with more posi-

tive (negative) evaluations of the federal COVID response

will have higher (lower) levels of external political effi-

cacy. Using original survey data, collected in April 2020,

we find that respondents who view the government’s han-

dling of COVID more positively report higher levels of

external efficacy, providing support for our theoretical

expectations. We also performed an experiment in February

1041322APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211041322American Politics ResearchMcBrayer et al.

research-article2021

1University of Idaho, Moscow, USA

Corresponding Author:

Markie Rae McBrayer, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive MS 3165,

Moscow, ID 83844, USA.

Email: markie.mcbrayer@gmail.com

The Effects of COVID-19 on External

Political Efficacy

Markie Rae McBrayer1, Bert Baumgaertner1,

and Florian Justwan1

Abstract

Significant scholarship examines the effects of disasters and disaster management on political behavior and attitudes. Yet, no

research has assessed how health crises might shape people’s levels of external efficacy, nor how disaster response affects

external efficacy beyond localized extreme-weather events. Using the United States as a case study, we seek to fill these

gaps in the literature by exploring how individuals’ external political efficacy is affected by assessments of the federal COVID

response. With an original collection of survey data from April 2020, we find that respondents who view the government’s

handling of COVID more positively report higher levels of external efficacy. In a secondary analysis, we performed an

experiment in February 2021 where people were given different narratives about government management of the pandemic

response. The experimental results strongly suggest that disaster management—in this case the handling of the pandemic—

shapes individuals’ efficacy.

Keywords

political efficacy, disaster management, public health, COVID, external efficacy