Public Behavioural Responses to Policy Making During the Pandemic: Comparative Perspectives on Mask-Wearing Policies

This book provides a comparative study of people’s mask-wearing behaviour in response to government policies between European-Northern America and Asian countries.

Examining citizens’ attitudes towards their state during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of history, linguistics, politics, economics and sociology, the contributors in this volume explore to what extent people accept the wearing of masks in countries where governments have made it mandatory as compared to countries where people wear masks voluntarily. The book thus looks at mask-wearing from a political dichotomy between authoritarianism and liberalism and posits the extent to which political divisions could have existed in public opinion over the measures taken against COVID-19.

Filled with invaluable insights through research in 13 countries, this book will appeal to readers in policy making and influencing public opinion via the Europe-Asia comparative study.

Noriko Suzuki is a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Waseda University in Japan.

Xavier Mellet is an associate professor at the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University in Japan.

Susumu Annaka is an assistant professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Japan.

Masahisa Endo is an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Waseda University in Japan.