Citizens and the state during crisis: Public authority, private behaviour and the Covid‐19 pandemic in France

Abstract

How do democratic states induce citizens to comply with government directives during times of acute crisis? Focusing on the onset of the Covid‐19 pandemic in France, I argue that the tools states use to activate adherence to public health advice have predictable and variable effects on citizens' willingness to change their routine private behaviours, both because of variation in their levels of restrictiveness but also because of differences in people's political motivations to comply with them. Using data collected in March 2020, I show that people's reports of changes in their behavioural routines are affected by the signals governments send, how they send them and the level of enforcement. I find that a nationally televised speech by President Macron calling for cooperative behaviour and announcing new restrictions elevated people's willingness to comply. Moreover, while co‐partisanship with the incumbent government increased compliance reports before the President's primetime television address, presidential approval boosted reports of compliance after.