Citizens' economic recovery models for a pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought sudden economic devastation and forced countries to respond with policies to counter the looming economic crisis. What policy response do citizens prefer to combat an economic decline due to a pandemic? We study the preferences of citizens regarding economic policy and changes in these preferences as the pandemic unfolded in Denmark. Denmark passed early and comprehensive legislation with broad support from all political parties to counter the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

When blame avoidance backfires: Responses to performance framing and outgroup scapegoating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public officials use blame avoidance strategies when communicating performance information. While such strategies typically involve shifting blame to political opponents or other governments, we examine how they might direct blame to ethnic groups. We focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, where the Trump administration sought to shift blame by scapegoating (using the term "Chinese virus") and mitigate blame by positively framing performance information on COVID-19 testing.

Is a disease leader attractive? Six tests of whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected follower preferences for attractiveness, health and other traits in political and non-political leaders.

Attractive political candidates receive more votes on Election Day compared to their less attractive competitors. One well-cited theoretical account for this attractiveness effect (White et al., 2013) holds that it reflects an adaptive psychological response to disease threats.