"Do as I say but not as I do": Influence of political leaders' populist communication styles on public adherence in a crisis using the global case of COVID-19 movement restrictions.

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the influence of political leaders' populist communication styles on public adherence to government policies regarding COVID-19 containment. We adopt a mixed-methods approach that combines: theory building with a nested multicase study design for Study 1 and an empirical study in a natural setting for Study 2. Based on the results from Studies 1 and 2, we develop two propositions that we further explain theoretically: (P1) countries with political leaders associated with engaging or intimate populist communication styles (i.e., the UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Ireland) exhibit better public adherence to their governments' COVID-19 movement restrictions than do countries with political leaders associated with communication styles that combine the champion of the

SUBMITTER: Liu L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10256453 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature