https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0141-821X
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ABSTRACT
Under COVID-19 emergency decrees, countries imposed freedom-restricting measures that health experts endorsed to contain the disease. There has been debates about whether the pandemic has led to the backsliding of democratic standards and the promotion of illiberal and authoritarian practices. This study conducted a survey in Hong Kong, a non-democracy. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government postponed an election widely expected to be won by the opposition. This study explores whether health experts’ opinions could affect public support for postponement of a regular election and government trustworthiness. It finds that neither health experts’ affirmation nor negation increased support for the postponement, but rejecting the government mandate reduced government trustworthiness while affirming it did not. The negative opinions thus had asymmetric information value against affirmative opinions in a known-censored environment. This channel operates through democrats in Hong Kong, who are critical citizens of the regime. The strategy of silencing dissent would be cost-effective for preserving political trust while engaging experts to support the mandates appeared unhelpful. This study contributes to understanding the use of experts in influencing political trust within an authoritarian setting.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Edgell et al., “Pandemic Backsliding.”
2 Flood et al., Reconciling Civil Liberties and Public Health; Isaacs, Britton, and Preisz, “The Epidemiology of Panic.”
3 Arceneaux et al., “Is COVID-19 a Threat?”; Lavezzolo, Ramiro, and Fernandez-Vazquez, “Technocratic Attitudes.”
4 Grundmann, “The Problem of Expertise.”
5 Radaelli, “Whither Politics of Expertise?”
6 Ray, “Red and Expert.”
7 Pielke Jr, The Honest Broker.
8 See note 5 above.
9 Jakobson, “Russian Experts”; Nachiappan, Mendizabal, and Datta, “Think Tanks in Asia”; Xue, Zhu, and Han, “Think-Tank in China.”
10 Wong and Huang, “Political Legitimacy in Singapore”; Baekkeskov and Rubin, “Blame-Avoidance Strategies”; Sandhu and Wheatley, Moulding of Modern Singapore; Gewirtz, Chinese Reformers, Western Economists; Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats.
11 Jones, “Experts, Rationalization, and Legitimacy”; Shen, Ieong, and Zhu, “Expert in China's Policy.”
12 Chen, “Media Criticism in China”; Li and Chen, “Public Opinion, International Reputation, and Audience Costs”; Neo and Xiang, “State Rhetoric, Nationalism and Public Opinion.”
13 Hovland and Weiss, “Source Credibility, Effective Communication”; Austin and Dong, “Source v. Content Effects”; Wilson and Sherrell, “Source Effects in Communication.”
14 Jessop, “Repoliticising Depoliticisation.”
15 Springer, “Neoliberalism and Geography”; Gallo, “Varieties of Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; Harvey, History of Neoliberalism.
16 Huat, “Singapore: Knowledge Experts”; Weiss, The Roots of Resilience.
17 Lam-Knott, Connolly, and Ho, “Post-Political Asian Cities.”
18 Baekkeskov and Rubin, “Blame-Avoidance Strategies.”
19 Jones, “Experts, Rationalization, and Legitimacy.”
20 Farjam et al., “Experts Ensuring Public Support”; Fang, “How China Uses Experts”; Amat et al., “Pandemics Meet Democracy.”
21 See note 19 above.
22 Amat et al., “Pandemics Meet Democracy”; Arceneaux et al., “Is COVID-19 a Threat?”
23 Lavezzolo, Ramiro, and Fernandez-Vazquez, “Technocratic Attitudes.”
24 See note 19 above.
25 Ibid.
26 Belyaeva, “Policy Advisory System in Russian Practices.”
27 Nie and Elliott, “Humiliating Whistle-Blowers.”
28 Morgan, “Use of Expert Elicitation.”
29 See note 5 above.
30 Battiston, Kashyap, and Rotondi, “Reliance on Scientists and Experts”; Lavezzolo, Ramiro, and Fernandez-Vazquez, “Technocratic Attitudes”; Siegrist and Cvetkovich, “The Role of Social Trust and Knowledge”; Daniele et al., “When Distrust Goes Viral.”
31 Green et al., “Polarization in Elite Communication”; Vraga et al., “Scientific Risk Communication.”
32 Dahlquist and Kugelberg, “Public Justification and Expert Disagreement.”
33 Vraga et al., “Scientific Risk Communication”; Kerr, Panagopoulos, and Linden, “Political Polarization on COVID-19”; Barbieri and Bonini, “Populism and Political Belief.”
34 Froio, “How Nativism, Authoritarianism and Expert Populism Did Not Pay off.”
35 Easterly, The Tyranny of Experts; Babones, Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts.
36 Ambrus et al., The Role of ‘Experts’.
37 Goldfinch, Taplin, and Gauld, “Trust in Government Increased”; Kerr, Panagopoulos, and Linden, “Political Polarization on COVID-19”; O’Shea and Ueda, “Who Ignore Experts’ Advice?”
38 Alsan and Eichmeyer, “Non-Experts for Improving Vaccine Demand”; O’Shea and Ueda, “Who Ignore Experts’ Advice?”
39 Fong, “Hong Kong's Democratization”; Case, “Hong Kong's 2007 Chief Executive Election”; Wong, “A Hybrid Regime: Hong Kong 2007–2012”; Ibid., Comparative Hong Kong Politics.
40 Wong, “Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Hong Kong.”
41 King, “Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong”; Lau and Kuan, “Hong Kong after the Sino-British Agreement.”
42 Chan, “COVID-19 Risk in Hong Kong.”
43 Wong, “A Hybrid Regime: Hong Kong 2007–2012.”
44 Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, “LegCo General Election Postponed for a Year.”
45 Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, “「修訂逃犯條例」民意調查.”
46 Maizland, “Holding Elections during Covid-19.”
47 McDonald, Avoiding the Hypothetical; Reis, Reis, and Judd, Handbook of Research Methods.
48 Majnemer and Meibauer, “Fictitious Country Names in Survey Vignettes”; McDonald, Avoiding the Hypothetical.
49 Converse and Presser, Survey Questions.
50 Mattingly et al., “Chinese Propaganda”; Martin et al., “Source Effects for Covid-19 Interventions”; Wong, “A Survey Experiment of Political Discontent”; Elsbach and Elofson, “Decision Explanations Affects Perceptions of Trustworthiness”; Chang and Chu, “Corruption and Trust?”; Della Porta, “Critical Trust”; Jones, “Experts, Rationalization, and Legitimacy.”
51 Blair, Coppock, and Moor, “Sensitivity Bias”; Tannenberg, “Self-Censorship.”
52 Shen and Truex, “In Search of Self-Censorship”; Frye et al., “Is Putin's Popularity Real?”; Nathan, “The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy.”
53 Shen and Truex, “In Search of Self-Censorship.”
54 Shi, Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan; Lei and Lu, “Revisiting Political Wariness in China's Public Opinion Surveys”; Tang, Public Opinion and Political Change in China.; Manion, “Learning from Local Samples”; Chen, Political Support in Urban China; Chen, “Popular Support for Village Self-Government in China.”
55 Lee, “Evaluation of Government Performance in Hong Kong”; Lee, “市民回應民意調查時 會否自我審查？”; Yuen et al., “A Tale of Two City-States.”
56 Lee, “市民回應民意調查時 會否自我審查？”
57 For example, Public Opinion Research Institute (formerly a part of the University of Hong Kong) and Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
58 Reinhardt, Trust across Three Levels of Government.
59 Murphy, Greer, and Wu, “Oklahoma Earthquakes.”
60 Gill, “Hurricane Katrina.”
61 Kaeding, “The Rise of ‘Localism.’”
62 Lee et al., “Political Reform in Hong Kong.”
63 See note 23 above.
64 Arceneaux et al., “Is COVID-19 a Threat?”
65 Nathan, “The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy.”
66 Ward et al., “The Politicization of a Public Health Issue”; Vieten, “Anti-Hygienic Mobilisation of the Far-Right”; Casarões and Magalhães, “Far-Right Leaders and Alt-Science Preachers”; Staerklé et al., “Populism, Science Skepticism, and Global Crisis-Solving Motivations.”
67 Arceneaux et al., “Is COVID-19 a Threat?”; Battiston, Kashyap, and Rotondi, “Reliance on Scientists and Experts.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Vera W. H. Yuen
Vera W. H. Yuen is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong. Her interests include political economy, authoritarian politics, and public health. She has been involved in public policy-making and has written advocacy papers with think tanks on areas such as housing, retirement protection, the labour market, and media regulation. She has also sat on several government boards related to housing, broadcasting, security, education, and culture.