Between reliance and justification – government’s relationship to experts in covid-19 pandemic

The sudden eruption of the covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 rapidly modified the political relationships and processes. Fast decisions were needed so governments often assumed unprecedently more control over their citizens (Walt 2020), occupying the central decision-making position. However, the threat was uncommon and unknown in many aspects which left governments strongly dependent on experts’ evaluations and recommendations to ensure public health and safety. Consequently, the experts from medical fields were put at the forefront of the political and public debates. But many authors (Lavazza and Farina 2020; Finders and Dimova 2020) warn that this reliance on experts could also be a part of political cover, a depoliticization strategy of politicians to avoid the blame and public responsibility for the unpopular measures or failed results. The later progress of the pandemic highlighted the complexity of relationships between experts and decision-makers. Many governments have been criticized for high death tolls for not following the expert advice and reacting fast enough. However, the pandemic is not only a health crisis but also an economic and social one which increases the number of expert and interest groups influencing the decision-making process and the relationship between medical experts and governments. This paper observes the relationship between experts and decision-makers on a case study of Slovenia during the second wave of the pandemic. After being the first country in Europe to declare the end of the epidemic in summer, the country today has one of the highest death tolls in Europe. Since social relationships and power relations between actors are reflected in social discourse the paper presents results from critical discourse analysis conducted to observe the use of expert knowledge in pandemic restriction decision-making. The critical discourse analysis is conducted on the official governmental press releases and analyses the way the government refers to experts and uses them in their public statements. Drawing on the literature on the uses of knowledge in the policy process, we seek to determine the way knowledge was used when reacting to the erupting second wave. Was the government relying on experts, using them for justifying their decisions or just taking their opinion into account equally to other interest group opinions? The paper further discusses if and how the government addresses potential opposing expert opinions and whether there is any distinction between the official and the unofficial experts in the eyes of the government. We contextualize these findings regarding the role of science in contemporary societies. Cited: Walt, M. Stephen (2020) in: Crabtree, James et al. (2020): The Future of the State, Ten global leading thinkers on government after the pandemic. Foreign Policy, 16. 5. 2020. Lavazza, Andrea, and Farina, Mirko (2020): The Role of Experts in the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Limits of Their Epistemic Authority in Democracy. Frontiers in Public Health – Hypothesis and Theory, 8 (356). Flinders, Matthew, and Dimova, Gergana (2020): Bringing in the experts: blame deflection and the COVID-19 crisis. Available: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/bringing-in-the-experts-blame-deflection-and-the-covid-19-crisis/.