Australian states and territories mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for front-line occupations. Most also covered additional occupations, and some required people to be vaccinated to access venues. Mandates attained high vaccine uptake, but they have been accused of fuelling right-wing populism and driving a reduction in uptake for routine vaccinations. Five years later, a mixed-methods evaluation considers these policies through the emergent research agenda of legitimacy.
Scholarly analyses of vaccine mandates usually focus on whether they are legal, effective, or ethically justified. Political science scholarship offers an additional domain: whether vaccine mandates are (seen as) legitimate in that political community. We encounter a legitimacy critique when people say, “The government can’t do this.” Recent work outlining a legitimacy agenda for vaccine mandates notes two key components: descriptive and procedural. We can understand empirically whether a population supports government limiting individual freedom about vaccine decisions. The procedural component pertains to the processes governments follow when making vaccine mandates (i.e. inquiries, consultations). This paper examines the legitimacy of vaccine mandates for COVID-19 in Australian states and territories, using a framework that explores mandates’ features and operation; construction and context; and the qualities of the governed public.
Data draws from the mixed-methods MandEval project. State and territory policies were clarified via document analysis; qualitative key informant interviews were conducted with 102 policymakers; representative samples of 3000+ Australians were surveyed twice; individuals who lost jobs and organized against mandates were interviewed across two studies; and legal rulings were collated and interpreted. All data were analysed via standard disciplinary methods.
Analysis of mandates’ features and operation reveals that some jurisdictions used a targeted sectoral approach, whereas others sought to drive vaccine uptake across the population. Questions of legitimacy link to the different aims governments pursued: making spaces safe(r) versus protecting / restoring societal functioning through mass vaccination. For enforcement, minimum wage workers were required to conduct checks and exclude the unvaccinated from venues. In terms of people’s ability to avoid the consequences of a mandate, exemptions were difficult to attain and closely scrutinized by governments.
During COVID-19, governments could not follow routine policymaking processes, and all Australian vaccine mandates were made via executive order rather than parliaments. Public engagement was extremely limited, and policymakers usually acted quickly, drawing on expert advice and consulting with key sectoral stakeholders regarding implementation. Legal contestation reveals that decision-makers were held most accountable for processes rather than for the content of their decisions, particularly in jurisdictions with human rights legislation. Quantitative analysis shows that the public generally trusts the political and health institutions tasked with these activities, but qualitative data show significant distrust among individuals and communities negatively affected by mandates. Further analysis of the governed public reveals that particular political and personal values dominate, but do not necessarily orient towards supporting vaccine mandates, since they are mediated by whether someone believes vaccines are safe. Findings illuminate the important consideration of legitimacy in coercive policies responding to emergencies by applying them to the rich and varied Australian pandemic context.
