Worst of the bunch: visual comparative benchmarks change evaluations of government performance
Worst of the bunch: visual comparative benchmarks change evaluations of government performance
Benchmarking theories argue voters use information about other countries’ performances, usually on the economy and obtained through experience or media, to evaluate their own governments. Yet existing observational evidence is relatively fragile and struggles to distinguish how people become more knowledgeable. Using a pre-registered experiment, we showed UK respondents a chart displaying the UK’s exceptionally high cumulative COVID-19 deaths either in isolation or alongside European countries with fewer deaths. Mimicking widely-circulated charts, this visual treatment enhances our study’s external validity and tests the media-based channel for benchmarking. Aligned with pre-registered expectations, seeing the UK as “worst of the bunch” compared to UK-only data caused more negative government evaluations. Unexpectedly, partisanship did not moderate the information effects, while exploratory tests revealed the visuals generated more negative evaluations among respondents with high political trust. Our study shows international comparisons in visual forms can change domestic opinion, and on matters beyond strictly economic performance.
COVID-19, UK, benchmarking, government evaluation, political trust, visualization
785-815
Allen, William L.
f0d4731a-81c1-4886-b11c-74dfa412bb97
Ahlstrom-Vij, Kristoffer
fbf3f016-1ddf-484e-8431-be7490fdbc50
March 2025
Allen, William L.
f0d4731a-81c1-4886-b11c-74dfa412bb97
Ahlstrom-Vij, Kristoffer
fbf3f016-1ddf-484e-8431-be7490fdbc50
Allen, William L. and Ahlstrom-Vij, Kristoffer
(2025)
Worst of the bunch: visual comparative benchmarks change evaluations of government performance.
Comparative Political Studies, 58 (4), .
(doi:10.1177/00104140241252095).
Abstract
Benchmarking theories argue voters use information about other countries’ performances, usually on the economy and obtained through experience or media, to evaluate their own governments. Yet existing observational evidence is relatively fragile and struggles to distinguish how people become more knowledgeable. Using a pre-registered experiment, we showed UK respondents a chart displaying the UK’s exceptionally high cumulative COVID-19 deaths either in isolation or alongside European countries with fewer deaths. Mimicking widely-circulated charts, this visual treatment enhances our study’s external validity and tests the media-based channel for benchmarking. Aligned with pre-registered expectations, seeing the UK as “worst of the bunch” compared to UK-only data caused more negative government evaluations. Unexpectedly, partisanship did not moderate the information effects, while exploratory tests revealed the visuals generated more negative evaluations among respondents with high political trust. Our study shows international comparisons in visual forms can change domestic opinion, and on matters beyond strictly economic performance.
Text
allen-ahlstrom-vij-2024-worst-of-the-bunch-visual-comparative-benchmarks-change-evaluations-of-government-performance
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e-pub ahead of print date: 20 May 2024
Published date: March 2025
Keywords:
COVID-19, UK, benchmarking, government evaluation, political trust, visualization
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 500020
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/500020
ISSN: 0010-4140
PURE UUID: 60f7081f-5da8-48ab-90f2-a326748da2a6
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Date deposited: 11 Apr 2025 16:42
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:43
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Author:
William L. Allen
Author:
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
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