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Book Chapter

The debate on the pandemic in spain: Discursive strategies in political argumentation

01 Jan 2022-pp 288-305
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the discourse of the political debate in the Spanish parliamentary confrontation on the coronavirus and its health and economic consequences, and analyze eight debates led by the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, and the leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado.
Abstract: The chapter analyses the discourse of the political debate in the Spanish parliamentary confrontation on the coronavirus and its health and economic consequences. To this end, it analyses eight debates led by the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, and the leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado. The discursive strategies of both influence the central aspects of the political framework on which the legislature is structured, as can be seen in the grammatical mechanisms, in the lexical selection, in the evidentiality around the sources of legitimacy, and in general, in the stylistic and emotional component of the respective interventions. In this way, the pandemic has become a privileged reference for the political programmes of the different parties.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors consider the notions of inherent and mock impoliteness, and discuss contextual factors associated with impolite behaviour, and demonstrate that in some contexts, such as army training and literary drama, impolitity behaviour is not a marginal activity, and that we need an appropriate descriptive framework in order to account for it.

1,058 citations

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TL;DR: In this article, the authors express their solidarity with those affected and impacted directly by the COVID-19 pandemic, while none of us is untouched by the pandemic event.
Abstract: As editors of Territory, Politics, Governance, we want first and foremost to express our solidarity with those affected and impacted directly by the COVID-19 pandemic. While none of us is untouched...

124 citations

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TL;DR: It is suggested that Fire metaphors are particularly appropriate and versatile in communication about different aspects of the pandemic, including contagion and different public health measures aimed at reducing it.
Abstract: Metaphors have been widely used in communication about the Covid-19 pandemic. The virus has been described, for example, as an "enemy" to be "beaten," a "tsunami" on health services and even as "glitter" that "gets everywhere." This paper discusses different metaphors for the pandemic, and explains why they are used and why they matter. War metaphors are considered first, as they were particularly frequent and controversial at the beginning of the pandemic. An overview of alternative metaphors is then provided, drawing from the "#ReframeCovid" crowd-sourced multilingual collection of metaphors for Covid-19. Finally, based on both the #ReframeCovid collection and a systematic analysis of a large corpus of news articles in English, it is suggested that Fire metaphors are particularly appropriate and versatile in communication about different aspects of the pandemic, including contagion and different public health measures aimed at reducing it.

115 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Questions about capacity and mechanisms through which democracy has been shown to be beneficial for health have not traveled well to explain the performance of governments in this pandemic are explored, even amid the pandemic when it is too soon to draw conclusions.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged governments around the world. It also has challenged conventional wisdom and empirical understandings in the comparative politics and policy of health. Three major questions present themselves: First, some of the countries considered to be most prepared-having the greatest capacity for outbreak response-have failed to respond effectively to the pandemic. How should our understanding of capacity shift in light of COVID-19, and how can we incorporate political capacity into thinking about pandemic preparedness? Second, several of the mechanisms through which democracy has been shown to be beneficial for health have not traveled well to explain the performance of governments in this pandemic. Is there an authoritarian advantage in disease response? Third, after decades in which coercive public health measures have increasingly been considered counterproductive, COVID-19 has inspired widespread embrace of rigid lockdowns, isolation, and quarantine enforced by police. Will these measures prove effective in the long run and reshape public health thinking? This article explores some of these questions with emerging examples, even amid the pandemic, when it is too soon to draw conclusions.

103 citations