From Policy Legitimization to Blame Avoidance—Discursive Strategies During Denmark's Mink Culling Crisis

Original

From Policy Legitimization to Blame Avoidance—Discursive Strategies During Denmark's Mink Culling Crisis

Olivier Rubin, Olov Hemmingsson, Evangelia Petridou, Jörgen Sparf

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines how governments navigate policy legitimacy during crises through three distinct discursive processes: legitimization, delegitimization, and blame avoidance. Using a sequential mixed‐methods design, the study analyzes Denmark's decision to cull all mink during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The quantitative analysis of 947 newspaper articles indicates that while both periods were characterized by negative coverage, the force and target of delegitimization discourses shifted dramatically from questioning policy outcomes to scrutinizing procedural legitimacy. The qualitative analysis illustrates how, initially, the government successfully legitimized the mink culling through appeals to scientific authority, with broad political and public support. However, following legal and scientific challenges, policy legitimacy collapsed, coinciding with a strategic pivot from policy justification to blame avoidance. The analysis illustrates that legitimization and blame avoidance can be treated as analytically distinct discursive strategies: legitimization proactively affirms policy necessity through evidence and legal appeals, while blame avoidance reactively deflects responsibility through reframing, buck‐passing, and scapegoating. The policy persisted despite sustained delegitimization, initially aided by legitimization efforts and later by blame avoidance strategies. The findings advance policy theory by clarifying how discursive strategies evolve across a policy's lifecycle and offer a framework applicable to other high‐salience domains such as climate emergencies and migration policies.