By José Javier Olivas Osuna and José Rama
The radical right party Vox has been a harsh critic of the Spanish government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the qualitative and quantitative content analysis of parliamentary speeches, during the first wave of the crisis we find that Abascal’s interventions became increasingly populist as the pandemic progressed and that there is also evidence of a ‘spillover’ or contagion effect, with the level of populism displayed by other parties also increasing. This post summarises some of the most important findings of the research we recently published in Frontiers in Political Science. Continue reading
The European Union has been one of the most classic tourist destinations in the world. The freedom of travel for its natives and tourists visiting one continent with various cultures has allowed the EU to take advantage of the plethora of tourism. Yet, the spread of COVID-19 has had a grave impact on the EU whose 10% of GDP flows from the industry. With the spread of vaccines to fight the pandemic countries are slowly opening up their borders and some of them have invented unique plans to enhance tourism.
In the last decade, France has seen particularly devastating terrorist attacks with incidents such as the 
The coronavirus crisis has reinforced some of the tendencies that were already taking place for some time. In the United States, before the demonstrations initiated by George Floyd’s death began, Donald Trump alternated between public appearances calling for lockdown and appeals to ‘liberate’ the democrat states from the ‘oppressing’ measures their governors would have been taking. His erratic management led to conflicts with several governors, among them some republicans. However, the population’s perception of Trump’s management of the health crisis has been determined by their mentality prior to the pandemic: 
Similarities end here, though. Portugal has experienced the coronavirus crisis very differently; it went into lockdown comparatively earlier. 
