The DOI matches its Crossref record; 35 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
“Guided by the science”: (De)politicising the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis
Open accessAbstract
This article sets out to examine the politicising and depoliticising effects of the various stories that were deployed by the UK government in its response to the coronavirus crisis during its daily press briefings over a 2-month period between 16 March and 16 May 2020. In doing so, we identify four key narratives: (1) unprecedented government activism; (2) working to plan; (3) national security, wartime unity and sacrifice; and (4) scientific guidance. Through a quantitative and qualitative study of the deployment of these narratives, we attempt to further recent theoretical insights on depoliticisation by noting that the COVID-19 crisis produced a particular type of crisis moment in which the government was forced to respond in ‘real time’ to a set of circumstances which were rapidly changing. As such, this made it much more difficult to control the various stories they wanted to tell and therefore find a coherent ‘anchor’ for their politicising and depoliticising strategies. This led to some deft discursive footwork as the government sought to pass the ball of responsibility between various groups of actors in order to rapidly and continually shift the balance between avoiding blame and taking credit.
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“Incorporating dimensions of the critical human security approach into risk governance is an attempt to avoid the depoliticisation of risk (Fawcett and Marsh, 2014; Kettell and Kerr, 2022) and ' the technocratic, decisionistic, and economic models of risk assessment and management ' (Van Asselt and Renn, 2011: 436).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Kettell and Kerr, 2022
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Cites
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
The UK Government’s COVID-19 Policy: What Does “Guided by the Science” Mean in Practice?
Cairney, P. (2021) · Frontiers in Political Science · doi:10.3389/fpos.2021.624068 · Cited by 79
The state of British policymaking: How can UK government become more effective?
Cairney, P., Boswell, J., Ayres, S., Durose, C., Elliott, I., Flinders, M. V., Martin, S. J., & Richardson, L. (2024) · Parliamentary Affairs · doi:10.1093/pa/gsae019 · Cited by 28
Analysing the ‘follow the science’ rhetoric of government responses to COVID-19
MacAulay, M., Fafard, P., Cassola, A., & Palkovits, M. (2023) · Policy & Politics · doi:10.1332/030557321x16831146677554 · Cited by 26
The politics of COVID-19 experts: comparing winners and losers in Italy and the UK
Cairney, P., & Toth, F. (2023) · Policy and Society · doi:10.1093/polsoc/puad011 · Cited by 18
Angelou, A., Ladi, S., Panagiotatou, D., & Tsagkroni, V. (2023) · Public Administration · doi:10.1111/padm.12962 · Cited by 31
Metadata
- Authors
- Kettell, S., & Kerr, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Warwick (GB)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Kettell, Steven
- Venue
- The British Journal of Politics and International Relations
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-11-08
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 11-30
- ISSN
- 1369-1481 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-856X
- OpenAlex
- W3213889095
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 22.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Cultural and political discourse analysis
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Discourse Analysis and Cultural Communication
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, depoliticization, politicization, government communication, press briefings, crisis communication, national security rhetoric, government activism, UK government response
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