זהות פוליטית, נרטיבים של ימין ושמאל, ורמת האמון במוסדות המדינה: התמודדות בעת משבר הקורונה

The Covid pandemic broke out at a time when Israel was in the midst of an ongoing political and social crisis. The public’s trust at that time was essential in order to cope with the pandemic. In this study, we examined assumptions regarding the degree to which political identification and perceptions and narratives of the left and right, which developed in association with Covid, could explain levels of trust in public institutions during this crisis. The narratives which were examined, related to the pivots of universal values versus specific Jewish identity, social responsibility and solidarity versus personal liberty and individual rights versus governance. The sample included 695 Jewish Israelis,and the study was conducted at seven different points in time, from March 2020till February 2022. Political identification was found to be related to the level of trust in public institutions, and the turning point occurred during the “Change Government”. During this period, political orientation and identification with the narrative explained the level of trust; the tendency to left beliefs and identification with the narrative of the left predicted a high level of trust, while a tendency to identify with the right, forecasted low levels of trust. Identification with the narrative of individual rights was found to be in a unique position, which was identified neither with the right nor the left and predicted a low level of trust