The Making and Breaking of Jacinda Ardern's Labour Government, 2017–2023

Abstract New Zealand's former prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been an inspiration to the left. As leader of a coalition government formed in 2017, she gave hope to social democrats and women. Her compassionate leadership was widely praised, while her scientifically robust approach to the Covid‐19 pandemic was exemplary. New Zealand Labour was rewarded at the ballot box in 2020 with a single‐party majority. Ardern stepped down mid‐term as prime minister in January 2023, however, and Labour was heavily defeated in the subsequent election. What drove Labour from unprecedented success to humiliation? An effective pandemic response had been both the making and the breaking of Ardern's prime ministership. Labour hadn't anticipated a political backlash against lockdown and vaccine‐mandate policies and it introduced social and administrative reforms that lacked wide public support. Some political lessons can be drawn from Ardern's career.