Political Outcomes and Institutional Trust in the Aftermath of an Emergency

The world has been in the grip of a democratic recession and authoritarian regimes and autocratic rules are on the rise. The recent responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have further exacerbated the situation undermining democratic rule in many countries. For example, to curb the spread of the coronavirus, governments, including democratic nations, implemented policies limiting individual human rights, such as lockdowns, travel restrictions, and mandatory closures of establishments. In the short term, the effects are quite clear. However, the long-term effects of these emergency/authoritarian measures are unclear because we do not have sufficient data. In this project, I examine the long-term effect of such a state of authoritarian emergency rule. I consider India, the world's largest democracy, as a case study. The short-term emergency rule implemented in India between 1975 and 1977 serves as a historical example to analyze the lasting effects of such measures. My main finding is that the emergency rule has had a first-order impact on the decline of the political dominance of the then-incumbent party. The emergency rule can explain as much as a 28-percentage point drop in the incumbent candidates' probability of winning elections in subsequent years. Finally, I examine the enduring consequences, revealing that the present-day trust in politicians remains low in places where the emergency measures were high. Overall, this project sheds light on the long-term effects of the implementation of authoritarian rule undermining democracy and human rights, contributing to our understanding of the ways in which such measures can shape political attitudes and affect trust. The findings of this study will be of significant interest to academics, policymakers, and individuals engaged in the ongoing debate regarding the balance between emergency measures and democratic governance.research repor