Regime and cultural determinants of the acceptance of political decisions in times of crisis (DAPEK)

Under what conditions are people prepared to accept restrictions on their personal freedoms in order to protect their own well-being and health, but above all the well-being and health of others? What do decision-making processes have to look like in order to be regarded as legitimate by citizens? Are there freedoms that people do not want to give up under any circumstances? What role does the democratic quality of a political regime play in these questions, and what is the role of various cultural characteristics?

These questions, which refer to the area of tension between individual liberties and collective welfare, arise with particular urgency in view of the worldwide Corona pandemic, but also with a view to future crises, such as the impending climate catastrophe.

To study these questions, DAPEK surveyed 9,000 respondents from six countries (Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland, South Korea, and Spain – 1,500 respondents each) in November 2021. Core of the data collection are two survey experiments. First, a conjoint experiment is designed to analyze which restrictions in pandemic countermeasures affect citizen support. Second, a combination of a best-worst-scaling approach with a framing experiment scrutinizes which political decision-making procedures citizens prefer and whether that varies by different societal challenges. The experimental data are flanked by extensive individual-level data, a.o. on demographics, as well as political and cultural value orientations.

DAPEK is a short-term project of the DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script", which is located at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, among others.

Keywords: covid-19, value orientations, societal challenges, decision-making process, freedom

在何种条件下，人们会愿意接受对个人自由的限制，以保护自身的福祉与健康——尤其是他人的福祉与健康？决策过程需具备何种特征，才能被公民视为具有合法性？是否存在人们在任何情况下都不愿放弃的自由？政治体制的民主质量在这些问题中扮演何种角色？不同文化特征又发挥怎样的作用？

这些涉及个人自由与集体福祉之间张力领域的问题，在全球新冠疫情背景下显得尤为迫切，同时也针对未来危机（如迫在眉睫的气候灾难）而提出。

为研究这些问题，DAPEK于2021年11月对来自六个国家（德国、匈牙利、日本、波兰、韩国和西班牙，每个国家1500名受访者）的9000名受访者进行了调查。数据收集的核心是两项调查实验。首先，一项联合实验（conjoint experiment）旨在分析疫情防控措施中的哪些限制会影响公民的支持度。其次，将最佳最差量表法（best-worst-scaling approach）与框架实验（framing experiment）相结合，旨在考察公民偏好何种政治决策程序，以及这种偏好是否因不同社会挑战而有所差异。实验数据辅以大量个体层面的数据，例如人口统计学特征、政治及文化价值取向等。

DAPEK是由德国研究基金会（DFG）资助的“自由脚本的争议”卓越集群（Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script"）的一个短期项目，该集群主要位于柏林社会科学中心（WZB）等地。

关键词：新冠疫情（covid-19）、价值取向（value orientations）、社会挑战（societal challenges）、决策过程（decision-making process）、自由（freedom）