Rallying around the vaccine: how state-level risk perceptions and nationalism motivate public acceptance of immunization program

Abstract

This article presents new arguments on the role of trust in the government and nationalist sentiments in fostering policy-compliant behaviors. In July and September 2020, we launched two waves of a COVID-related survey in China with stratified quota sampling, and formed a longitudinal panel dataset of 822 responses. Based on the data, we examined how risk perceptions and nationalist sentiments jointly elicited trust in government agencies and, consequently, support for the state-sponsored immunization program. We argue that increasing concern about the risk to the state posed by the pandemic motivated Chinese citizens to rally around the government and comply with its vaccination drives. Nationalist sentiments simultaneously elevated risk perceptions, reinforcing their impact on trust in the government. Our findings contribute to the literature on crisis governance, offering new evidence on how trust in the government and nationalist sentiment may influence the dynamic interplay between risk perceptions and policy compliance.

Keywords:

• Rally effect
• risk perception
• government trust
• policy compliance
• nationalism
• COVID-19 pandemic
• China
• immunization

Acknowledgments

We thank the aforementioned institutes for their funding.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Human Subjects Ethics Sub-Committee of City University of Hong Kong (Approval Code: 3-2020-13-F; Approval Date: 2020/06/04).

Statement of informed consent

Written consent was obtained from all the subjects involved in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Data availability statement

The supporting data is not available as the participants of this study and the data manager did not agree for their data to be shared publicly.

Notes

1 A similar approach for delineating respondents’ inclinations can be found from Ireland et al. (2015).

Additional information

Funding

The research draws on the data from surveys supported by the Department of Media and Communication of the City University of Hong Kong under the Faculty Research Fund #9618019, as well as the City University of Hong Kong under the Start-up Grant for Professors #9380119.