Political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic: Rally around the flag or lockdown effects?

How can we explain the rise in diffuse political support during the Covid-19 pandemic? Recent research has argued that the lockdown measures generated political support. In contrast, I argue that the intensity of the pandemic rallied people around political institutions. Collective angst in the face of exponentially rising Covid-19 cases depresses the usual cognitive evaluations of institutions and leads citizens to rally around existing intuitions as a lifebuoy. Using a representative Dutch household survey conducted over March 2020, I compare the lockdown effect to the dynamic of the pandemic. I find that the lockdown effect is driven by pre-existing time trends. Accounting for non-linearities in time makes the lockdown effect disappear. In contrast, more flexible modelling techniques reveal a robust effect of Covid-19 infections on political trust. In line with an anxiety effect, I find that standard determinants of political trust – such as economic evaluations and social trust – lose explanatory power as the pandemic spreads. This speaks to an emotionally driven rally effect that pushes cognitive evaluations to the background.     

What drives compliance with COVID-19 measures over time? Explaining changing impacts with Goal Framing Theory

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study which factors drive compliance and how the evolving context in society –virus fluctuations and changing government measures – changes the impact of these factors. Extant literature lists many factors that drive compliance – notably enforcement, trust, legitimacy. Most of these studies, however, do not look across time: whether a changing context for citizens changes the impact of factors driving compliance. In this study, we use Lindenberg's Goal Framing Theory to explain the dynamics of these drivers of compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic. We formulate hypotheses for pro-socialness, trust in government, observed respect for rules, rule effectiveness, rule appropriateness, fear of COVID-19 (severity and proximity), opportunities for pleasure and happiness, as well as worsened income position. We test our hypotheses with data collected at three different moments during the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in Flanders, Belgium. Findings show that over time the constellations of factors that drive compliance change and, later in the pandemic, more distinct groups of citizens with different motivations to comply are identified. The overall conclusion is that the voluntary basis for compliance becomes more fragile over time, with a more differentiated pattern of drivers of compliance emerging. Public policy and communication need to adapt to these changes over time and address different groups of citizens.     

Educational Leadership＂ What Can China Teach the West About Inclusive Decision-Making Practices

This paper focuses on educational decision-making in a Chinese context, but starts from a critique of distributed leadership educational theory as an instrumentalist and Western device of analysis. It is based upon a 2012 research project which reports on the academic insights of 51 Chinese school leaders who were also students studying ＂Masters of Educational Leadership＂ at an Australian university. The project explored these Chinese school leaders＇ perceptions of decision-making in education settings. It considered who would make decisions and how those decisions would be made in various hypothetical education scenarios. A unique feature of this research is the significant number of female school leaders from China who were in the participant cohort, so this study offers a rare insight into their thinking. Overall, this research offers an important first step in broadening out the theoretical discussions on leadership decision-making into a non-Western education environment. It also shows how educational research in the 21 st century is shifting away from Western---only analysis and instead broadening out to explore what the unique and important trends are in an Asian nation that is a global powerhouse.     

SARSCOV-19 amidst corruption: Does the civil society matter? – An empirical study

The pandemic outbreak has dealt consequences on global engagements and structures. With the ongoing search for pandemic-mitigating measures and the excesses (notably corruption) erupted in its wake, concerns have been raised about the decline in public trust, transparency and satisfaction – particularly in Ghana. This situation has spurred multilevel governance discussions regarding pandemic management. Ensuingly characterising policy makers' propositions in this regard is the civil society's salience as a control valve to governance deficits like corruption. Therefore, transcending the anecdotal claims on civil society's efficacy, this study takes a state-society perspective to probe its relevance in fostering trust, transparency and satisfaction, relative to corruption-stricken pandemic governance. The current study engages the general systems theory as a conceptual lens. The structural equation modelling technique was used in analysing data (n = 519) gathered through the questionnaire survey approach. Though results of data analysis affirmed the negative effects of corruption on trust, transparency and satisfaction, the civil society received affirmation as an enhancer of trust, transparency and satisfaction. In view of these study findings, implications and future research suggestions are delimited.     

Antecedents and consequences of interpersonal trust： An empirical study

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of empowerment, participation and feedback as antecedents of interpersonal trust and organizational commitment and productivity as consequences of interpersonal trust. This study also attempts to find the influence of empowerment, participation and feedback on positive organizational outcomes such as organizational commitment and productivity. A quantitative research design was employed. Data were collected through survey instrument from 186 participants comprising professional, administrative and support staff working in one municipality of Istanbul （Turkey） government. The research results indicate that interpersonal trust is vital to positive organizational outcomes such as organizational commitment and productivity and to enhance the interpersonal trust and positive organizational outcomes, which are characterized by empowerment, participation and feedback are very important.     

The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy?

Major crises can act as critical junctures or reinforce the political status quo, depending on how citizens view the performance of central institutions. We use an interrupted time series to study the political effect of the enforcement of a strict confinement policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we take advantage of a unique representative web-based survey that was fielded in March and April 2020 in Western Europe to compare the political support of those who took the survey right before and right after the start of the lockdown in their country. We find that lockdowns have increased vote intentions for the party of the Prime Minister/President, trust in government and satisfaction with democracy. Furthermore, we find that, while rallying individuals around current leaders and institutions, they have had no effect on traditional left–right attitudes.     

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Outcomes Evidence From Vietnamese Workers

The purpose of this study was to investigate empirically the impact of transformational leadership on organizational outcomes （OCB---organizational citizenship behavior, OC---organizational commitment, and job satisfaction）, and the mediating role of trust in the leader in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational outcomes in Vietnamese employees. The results showed that, first, transformational leadership had a significant relationship with organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Second, there was a positive relationship between transformational leadership and trust in the leader. Third, trust in the leader was positively and significantly related to OCB, affective organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Fourth, a moderating role of trust in the leader was identified in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational outcomes. Finally, some practical recommendations for developing leadership competencies in Vietnamese managers are suggested.     

The Committee on Standards in Public Life: Twenty Years of the Nolan Principles 1995–2015

In his recent memoir, William Waldegrave wrote that no country run by John Major and Robin Butler was likely to be in much danger of systemic corruption. The fact remains that a quarter of a century ago, John Major, with the guidance and support of his cabinet secretary, decided to establish the Committee on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. The apparent prevalence of ‘sleaze’ issues in public life—most notably the ‘cash for questions’ scandals involving Tory MPs—provoked the decision. Lord Nolan's committee immediately enunciated seven principles of public life: honesty, accountability, integrity, selflessness, openness, opportunity and leadership. Over the years, many of the Committee's recommendations have been accepted. There is today vastly greater transparency. The principles have been widely accepted; it is clear the public expects that they should be observed by public servants, including, perhaps especially, MPs. Yet it is equally clear that there is a widespread and still deepening mood of public cynicism on standards matters. The Committee is determined to defend the Nolan principles, but without more help from the political class it will be like Mrs Nupkins in The Pickwick Papers: inculcating moral lessons of great importance and generally ignored.     

Rallying in fear? Estimating the effect of the UK COVID-19 lockdown with a natural experiment

We use a natural experiment to study how the announcement of the UK COVID-19 lockdown affected citizens' attitudes towards the pandemic and the government's response to it. On the day of the lockdown announcement, YouGov ran a survey that captured responses before and after the announcement. Comparison of these responses suggests that the lockdown announcement made people more supportive of the government's response to the crisis but also (perhaps surprisingly) more concerned about the pandemic. Analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects suggests that the announcement narrowed gaps in perceptions of the crisis, increasing support for the government's response especially among those who had been least supportive and increasing concern about the pandemic especially among those who had been least concerned. Overall, the findings highlight a tension inherent in governing during times of crisis: actions that increase people's confidence in government and induce compliance with government directives may also tend to increase anxiety among the population.     

确立并践行新理念是形式主义问题的治本之策——以新冠肺炎疫情防控为例

形式主义是个老大难问题,治理起来相当困难。在新冠肺炎疫情防控过程中,尤其是在初期和一些地方,形式主义问题不仅存在还比较严重。在防控疫情这一“准战时”状态下,形式主义问题危害性更大。形式主义问题的根源是官僚主义,而官僚主义的形成有体制和思想两个层面的原因。从这两个层面施治,都属于治本之策,其中思想或理念层面的引领尤为重要。党的十八大以来,习近平总书记倡导并形成了三大新理念,即问题导向、结果导向和民意导向。与新理念相对立的旧理念正是形式主义问题的思想根源。新理念不只是理念,还是一套行动指南。只要确立并践行新理念,就能有效抑制形式主义问题的滋生,从而起到重要的治本作用。