How Has Covid Affected Voter Preferences

UCL Uncovering Politics

In this episode we are looking at a new piece of research - Flight to Safety: COVID-Induced Changes in the Intensity of Status Quo Preference and Voting Behavior.

This paper focusses on some important questions around covid. How do emotions and particularly anxiety, shape or influence voters preferences? How does anxiety resulting from this unforeseen external force, covid, or manufactured for political gain, influence democratic politics and elections? Are voters inherently risk averse during periods of uncertainty? And how did covid induce a flight to safety among voters?

Joining host Professor Jennifer Hudson is Dan Honig, Associate Professor of Public Policy here at the Department of Political Science who has been exploring all of these questions and more.

UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.