Emotions in (De)Legitimizing Actions and Inactions in Public Policy in Pandemic Protest

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in some cases, governments around the world responded with sweeping policy decisions that closed businesses and public gatherings in hopes of curbing the worst effects of the virus on the populations. In other cases, governments chose not to act or overlooked situations where they possibly could have intervened with more extensive policy initiatives. In this paper, we ask the following: how and why do people respond with protests to these policy actions and inactions, as driven in part by their implicit trust or distrust in governments, dealing with societal problems? To answer this question, this paper explores the use of emotions to legitimize or delegitimize government action or inaction through protests in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by a mix of mainstream and interpretive methodologies, we collect and analyze data on protests in four U.S. states from approximately 250 articles in 66 newspapers. We find distinctions between emotions used to legitimize and delegitimize action or inaction of government that pivot implicit trust or distrust in government by those associated with protests. Our analysis shows that using emotions as a lens to understand the dynamics of these in/actions emotions make visible a particular value environment that either makes a public policy in/action legitimate or delegitimizes it. The identification of the context of where these emotions are articulated and toward whom they are articulated is of essential importance for the dynamic of legitimacy. This paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of the role of emotions in argumentation associated with support or opposition to government thereby developing further current reflections on policy process theories. Second, we offer a rare combination of mainstream and interpretive methodological approaches and a means for using both techniques in a single study. We conclude with a research agenda for the continued study of emotions in policy processes ways to merge interpretive and mainstream methodologies.