Government Support Measures, Trust in Institutions and Effects on Satisfaction with Democracy During the COVID-19 Outbreak

This paper uses the European Living, Working and COVID-19 survey (Eurofound 2021 ) to examine the mechanism linking citizens' worsening financial hardship to lower satisfaction with democracy through the mediating role of government support and trust in institutions. We find that as households and firms have struggled to meet loan repayments to creditors, governments have intervened with social support measures that citizens have not judged to be adequate in terms of fairness, integrity, responsiveness and reliability. This has led to a decline in citizens' trust in institutions, exacerbating the impact of increased economic hardship on their satisfaction with democracy.