ABSTRACT

In this text, I investigate the Norwegian government’s two responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, utilizing a Foucauldian discourse analysis. The pandemic forces us to ask questions about political leadership – about how successful political programmes appear to be, as well as the rationalities underpinning them. I will focus upon the latter and find the Norwegian government to have initially articulated a liberal rationality that was later replaced by a biopolitical one. The former entails perceiving the pandemic as a phenomenon to be handled through a laissez-faire approach, by leaving things free to run their natural course. The latter revolves around discarding this liberalism in favour of an interventionist approach that restricts freedoms and economic progress in favour of safeguarding the health of the population. I investigate the links between the laissez-faire discourse and the government’s initial hesitation, as well as the biopolitical discourse and the draconian measures and contradictions between these two approaches.

抽象的

在本文中，我将利用福柯式的话语分析来研究挪威政府对Covid-19大流行的两种反应。大流行迫使我们提出有关政治领导力的问题-政治方案看起来如何成功，以及政治方案所依据的合理性。我将重点关注后者，并发现挪威政府最初阐明了一种自由理性，后来被一种生物政治理性所取代。前者需要把大流行看作是一种现象，可以通过放任自流的方法，让事情自由地顺其自然地发展，以应对这种现象。后者围绕放弃这种自由主义而取而代之，而采取干预主义的方式，即限制自由和经济进步，而有利于维护人民的健康。