Conceptual disputes during the pandemic crisis: Analysing the Spanish parliamentary debates in the COVID-19 context

This paper examines and analyses the Spanish parliamentary debates in the context of Covid-19 pandemic focusing on the use of concepts and the dynamics of argumentative controversies in political debates (Wiesner, Haapala & Palonen 2017). It proposes to revise current understanding of the political debates surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic in current Spanish parliamentary culture. During the pandemic, the regional government of Madrid set itself against the central government of Spain, and the regional parliamentary debates showed, for instance, parliamentary questions addressed to the central government. The primary sources used for the analysis include plenary debates in the Spanish national parliament and the regional parliament of Madrid. The starting point in this paper is to identify the conceptual connections between the regional debates in Madrid and the national parliamentary debates over handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The examination will focus on, first, the contextualization of the regional debates, and second, the identification of strategies regarding argumentation against the central government’s Covid-19 measures fueling controversy. In this way, the paper offers innovative methodological approach to analysing parliamentary debates.