“There is no need for anyone to be concerned”: the discursive legitimation of coercive police powers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

A number of countries have placed police officers in charge of policies aimed at suppressing the transmission of COVID-19. While scholarly attention has been paid to the legitimacy of a law enforcement response to the pandemic, less attention has been paid to the discursive techniques used by state officials when attempting to represent controversial policies as uncontroversial. This article examines the role of discourse in the rationalization of a law enforcement approach to the COVID-19 pandemic in NSW, Australia. I conduct a critical analysis of the language of policing officials in press conferences, interviews, and media releases to identify discursive strategies of authorization, moral evaluation, and rationalization, as described in Van Leeuwen’s analytical framework of legitimation (2007, 2008). I argue that the use of discursive techniques to depict punitive sanctions as desirable and effective, and public health rules as clear and of equal application to all, helped to naturalize a coercive response in the application of public health measures. The naturalness of this police-led approach is deconstructed by drawing on alternative accounts to show how COVID-19 rules were complicated and poorly communicated, and policed in an uneven, and at times, overzealous fashion.

Keywords

• legitimation
• covid-19
• public health policy
• discursive techniques
• coercive police powers
• critical discourse analysis