Partisan Emotions and Government Trust: Taiwan's COVID-19 Experience

Abstract

This study investigates how political partisanship and emotional responses influenced Taiwanese public trust in government during COVID-19. Drawing on crisis management and partisan motivated reasoning theories, we conducted a two-phase survey (N = 2136) examining attitudes toward six significant pandemic events. Political affiliation was the predominant predictor of attitudes toward governmental pandemic responses, with substantial differences between pan-Green and pan-Blue supporters. Education and relative deprivation also emerged as consistent predictors, with higher education corresponding to more critical evaluations. Most notably, negative emotions—particularly anger—significantly moderated the relationship between political affiliation and government trust. Anger demonstrated stronger moderating effects than fear across all models. These findings contradict the “rally-around-the-flag” effect, suggesting Taiwan's pre-existing political cleavages remained salient and were amplified by emotional responses during the pandemic, advancing understanding of differential emotional influences on political attitudes during crises within competitive democratic contexts.