University of São Paulo: Research warns to avoid making superficial relationships between ideology and deaths by covid
The concept of ideology has had multiple historically constructed meanings. Today, as defined by the Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, the term is best known as a set of philosophical, political and social ideas and values that characterize the thinking and guide the actions of an individual, society, group, movement or historical period. During the covid-19 pandemic, non- compliance with the health measures recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) by groups that supported President Jair Bolsonaro was observed. Based on this, several studies have sought to relate the number of cases and deaths from the disease to the ideology of individuals. For scholars who have followed some of these works, the task is not so simple, and the lack of rigor in the research can lead to wrong conclusions.
In an article published in the Brazilian Political Science Review , researchers from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) at USP and the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) analyzed studies on the subject and identified methodological problems in inferring the causal relationship between ideology and the numbers related to the pandemic. The main one was the use of ecological inferences, when aggregated data from a group or population are used to infer individual behaviors. According to Isabel Seelaender Costa Rosa, a Master’s student in Political Science and co-author of the article, ideology is not an easy concept to measure.
“Even if we had a satisfactory measure [for ideology], there are still difficulties in dealing with this concept and translating it into individual behavior in relation to adherence or not to measures against covid-19.”
According to the researcher, ecological inferences are suitable for making assumptions regarding groups (or, in this case, municipalities), but not for inferring information about individuals. The article shows, through data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), that, both in municipalities where Bolsonaro received more votes, and in regions where he lost, there was a wide variation in the number of cases and deaths from covid-19. This is because, while there was a geographic concentration of votes for Bolsonaro, the cases and deaths resulting from the disease did not follow a similar pattern.
“The 2018 presidential election vote is not the best tool to infer individual ideology, as other aspects also influenced attitudes towards the pandemic”, explains Isabel Rosa. The different conduct of health policies at the municipal and state levels and the different socioeconomic profiles of each municipality are factors that also played a determining role in the observed behaviors. Furthermore, the measurement of the vote is based on the assumption of extreme ideological coherence on the part of the voter, which could not change over time.
Other aspects that make it difficult to use the 2018 election to measure individual ideology are the particular dynamics of the electoral process and the political scenario at the time. Isabel states that the behavior of voters in the first round, when there is greater openness to voting based on ideological identification, tends to be different in the second round, when votes are allocated to majority candidates based on preference for one or the other.
Bolsonaro’s victory in the second round, for example, was influenced by the political and economic crisis, rejection of traditional politicians and the wave of antipetismo, aversion to the Workers’ Party (PT). Fake news, in addition to being very present in the electoral period, remained during the pandemic and influenced individual behavior.
The value of the social sciences
“In the social sciences, it is necessary to have a methodological rigor equivalent to that of the health sciences”, says Lorena Barberia, professor in the Department of Political Science at FFLCH and co-author of the study. She explains that the article also proposes a reflection on the ethical responsibility of political scientists and communication with society. “Science in general was highly valued during the pandemic, but the social sciences were forgotten and only now that we are lost have they been given their due importance again.”