COVID-19 risk perception and political actors: how confidence in the government or opposition affected risk perception during the Italian lockdown

This paper investigates the connections between the socio-demographic patterns of COVID-19 risk perception and the influence of confidence in the government or opposition during the first Italian lockdown. Confidence in political actors is used as a proxy for the adoption of the interpretative frames they provide. Socio-demographic characteristics are crucial in understanding the perception of risks ascribed to a specific event. However, the politicization of such events and the subsequent production of interpretative frames by political actors gives rise to further crucial factors when the event is characterized by ‘uncertainty’. This empirical analysis is based on primary data from a survey conducted in Italy during the last three weeks of closures (26 April−17 May 2020, N = 1,704) and clearly shows that the most worried respondents were women, elderly people, those living in the north of Italy, those with an upper-secondary school level of education or those with a job in the socio-cultural professions. Accounting for confidence in the government or opposition shows that respondents who have a higher degree of confidence in the opposition were less worried than those with a higher degree of confidence in the government. As politicization of the pandemic primarily divided those in favour and those opposed to the strict measures to limit infections at the expense of the health of the economy and personal freedom, the positions of respondents on these two trade-offs (economy/lockdown and freedom/lockdown) are accounted for. The analysis shows that position on these two dimensions completely reflects the association between confidence in political actors and risk perceptions – apart from the elderly, those resident in the north of Italy and socio-cultural professionals. These results provide insights into the literature assessing the socio-demographic patterns of COVID-19 risk perception and the politicization of the pandemic.