The paper presents an analysis of the UK government discourse on citizenship during the first 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–November 2020). We adopted a socio-cultural approach to citizenship drawing on the scholarly tradition of ideological dilemmas and rhetorical psychology as well as interdisciplinary work on neoliberalism. In our analysis of over one hundred briefings and other material by the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet, we identified five interrelated constructions of the ‘good citizen’: the confined, the heroic, the sacrificial, the unfree and the responsible citizen. The paper maps these constructions onto the ideological dilemmas of freedom/control, passive/active citizenship and individualism/collectivism. We show that, through the rhetorical use of notions of gratefulness for citizens' sacrifice and shared responsibility, the UK government's discourse appears to challenge the dominant model of the neoliberal citizen. However, it solidifies this very same model by responsibilizing individual citizens whilst abdicating itself from responsibility. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 下的公民身份：对 2020 年第一波大流行期间英国政治言论的分析

该论文分析了在 COVID-19 大流行的前 9 个月（2020 年 3 月至 11 月）期间英国政府关于公民身份的讨论。我们利用意识形态困境和修辞心理学的学术传统以及新自由主义的跨学科工作，采用社会文化方法来处理公民身份。在我们对总理和内阁成员的一百多份简报和其他材料的分析中，我们确定了“好公民”的五种相互关联的结构：受限制的、英勇的、牺牲的、不自由的和负责任的公民。本文将这些建构映射到自由/控制、被动/主动公民和个人主义/集体主义的意识形态困境。我们表明，通过对公民的感激之情的修辞使用 牺牲和分担责任，英国政府的话语似乎挑战了新自由主义公民的主导模式。然而，它通过让个人公民承担责任，同时放弃自己的责任，巩固了同样的模式。请参阅补充材料部分以查找本文的社区和社会影响声明。