Seminar with Bartholomew Konenchni on how political pivots shape behaviors and beliefs during crises
Seminar
Date:Tuesday 2 December 2025
Time:13.13 – 14.30
Location:Campus Albano, Room 23, House 4, Floor 2
Tuesday December 2, Bartholomew Konenchni, Centre for Research on Social Inequaliteis, Science Po, Paris, will give a seminar in the Department of Public Health Sciences´ seminar series PHS Talks. Konenchni will talk about how political pivots shape behaviors and beliefs during crises, with evidence from Trump´s position reversal over facemasks.
Seminar title:How Political Pivots Shape Behaviors and Beliefs During Crises: Evidence from Trump’s Position Reversal over Facemasks Time: 13:13–14:30 Location: Campus Albano, Room 23, House 4, Floor 2
Bartholomew Konechni is a doctoral candidate at the CRIS (Centre de Recherche sur les Inégalités Sociales), within Sciences Po Paris, focused on studying how new health behaviours disseminate throughout society using innovative econometric and computational methods. His work has appeared in Demography, the Journal of Social Policy, and is forthcoming in the American Sociological Review.
Seminar Abstract
Political leaders play a potentially important role shaping behaviors and beliefs during crises. In the pandemic, a number of high-status politicians, notably leaders of populist parties, were seen to diminish compliance with institutional recommendations by casting doubt on COVID-guidelines. But what happens when such leaders change position and endorse previously discouraged behaviors?
Using longitudinal data from the Understanding Coronavirus in America panel with fixed effects modeling, this article examines how Trump’s unexpected endorsement of facemasks in July 2020 impacted individuals’ likelihood of wearing a facemask and belief in masks’ efficacy. The paper finds that Trump’s pivot lifted Republicans’ use of facemasks, closing 40-percent of the preexisting gap with Democrats and with stronger effects amongst those more exposed to the early-summer spike in COVID cases.
Additionally, the article provides evidence for the unique significance of this moment in the history of the pandemic, showing that at almost no other time did partisan behaviors converge as sharply. However, in contrast to expectations from most dominant theoretical models of behavioral change, no corresponding shift in beliefs about facemasks can be detected. These results have important theoretical implications for how pivots can shape behaviors during crises, pandemic populism’s causes, and directions of future research.
The seminar is arranged by the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University.
