Perceiving Freedom: Civil Liberties and COVID-19 Vaccinations

Abstract

Why have some countries been more successful in their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts than others? Despite efforts by governments to vaccinate their adult populations against COVID-19, vaccination rates remain irregularly low in some countries. We suggest that a crucial piece of this puzzle lies in resistance against government directives from the public due to civil liberty protections. Countries with greater protections for civil liberties can be expected to have lower vaccinations administered than countries with fewer protections, as the public enjoys a sense of freedom regarding their private lives. In such countries, de jure constraints on government policies are complemented by the fear of public backlash, even in crises; consequently, beyond structural limitations, governments with high levels of civil liberty protections face an additional hurdle in managing the COVID-19 crisis. Evidence for this hypothesis is presented for 153 countries by combining civil liberty scores with newly available data on COVID-19 vaccinations.