Explaining political differences in attitudes to vaccines in France: partisan cues, disenchantment with politics and political sophistication

In this article, we contribute to current debates on the role of partisan cues and political sophistication in explaining vaccine hesitancy by drawing on surveys conducted in France. We test whether partisan differences in attitudes to vaccines are best explained by partisan cues or by parties’ differences in propensity to attract people who distrust the actors involved in vaccination policies. We find a small effect of partisan cues and a much stronger effect of trust. But more importantly, we show that the more politically sophisticated are less vaccine hesitant and that the non-partisan are the biggest and most vaccine-hesitant group. To expose the implications of these results, we draw on the sociology of symbolic boundaries and the sociology of disenchantment with politics. We argue that the more politically sophisticated are more likely to be made aware of when politicians cross the lines of acceptable political debate.