Replication Data for: Racial Resentment and Support for COVID-19 Travel Bans in the United States

Travel bans were a globally prevalent policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, travel bans against China and European countries proved a broadly popular mitigation tool among Americans. Why did Americans support COVID-19 travel bans? We fielded two novel survey experiments, surveying 3,000 American citizens across five waves (between March 2020 – March 2021). In randomizing the country of origin of those potentially subject to travel ban measures, we find consistent evidence that racial attitudes drive support for travel bans. The strength of this relationship varies across political parties and across hypothetical target countries but is not explained by objective caseloads that change across countries and over the course of the pandemic.

旅行禁令是全球应对新冠疫情（COVID-19）的主流政策举措之一。在美国，针对中国与欧洲多国的旅行禁令被证实是美国民众广泛认可的疫情防控缓解手段。那么美国民众为何会支持新冠疫情旅行禁令呢？本研究开展了两项创新性调研实验，于2020年3月至2021年3月期间，分五轮共调研了3000名美国公民。通过随机设定可能被纳入旅行禁令管制范围的人群的来源国，本研究获得了一致的实证证据，表明种族态度是影响民众支持旅行禁令的核心驱动因素。该关联的强度会因民众所属政党以及假想的禁令目标国不同而存在差异，但无法用各国及疫情不同阶段的客观确诊病例数差异来解释。