Political stability, trust and support for public policies: a survey experiment examining source effects for COVID-19 interventions in Australia and Hong Kong

Abstract

What is the relationship between political stability, trust, and source effects on support for public policies? In this article, we examine how source type (and the trust respondents have in different sources) impacts support for new policies and the degree to which this impact is moderated by political stability. This article reports the results of a survey experiment administered simultaneously in Australia and Hong Kong in late 2020 examining source effects on public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination and testing policies. For each case, the analyses compare source effects between a lesser trusted source (government) and a more trusted source (medical scientists). The study also compar..