Navigating pandemic waves: Consensus, polarisation and pluralism in the Finnish parliament during COVID-19

Abstract

This article studies how the COVID crisis affected polarisation, politicisation and consensus in Finnish parliamentary discourse, a case in which we expect pluralist political institutions and culture to mitigate polarisation. In addition to the empirical contribution, we add to the theory of polarisation by drawing from Chantal Mouffe’s theory of plural democracy to argue that the opposite of polarisation may take the form of a depoliticised consensus or a pluralism of legitimate positions (‘agonism’). Furthermore, we apply Norman and Isabela Fairclough’s political discourse analysis to studying polarisation qualitatively, arguing that scrutiny of argumentative premises enables assessment of how profound certain political conflicts are. Studying 485 parliamentary speeches given in 2020–2021, we argue that a morally charged consensus imperative with nationalistic overtones quickly developed in Spring 2020, and pluralism gradually re-emerged later. The article highlights that while polarisation can threaten democracy, so can moralisation and enforced consensus.