When crises occur, an opportunity for change is provided because of the emotional impact of these events. The aim of this study is to analyze the politicization of focusing events on the parliamentary arena. The research question is: are any differences between events with a varying degree of strength (stronger versus weaker) and origin (man-made versus natural disasters)? Debates in parliamentary plenary sessions are studied starting from four main themes: (1) the framing and (2) blame attribution of the crisis, as well as (3) emotions used in the argumentation and (4) solutions presented to the problem in question. The results indicate differences in the parliamentary debate due to a varying degree of strength. A stronger focus results in more tendencies to portray the event as an opportunity for change, and origin; whereas natural disasters are more often discussed in terms of anger, with debate contributions posed by opposition parties.
