The foundations of influencing policy and practice: How risk science discourse shaped government action during COVID-19

COVID-19 demonstrated the complex manner in which discourses from risk science are manipulated to legitimize government action. We use Foucault's theory of Governmentality to explore how a risk science discourse shaped national and local government action during COVID-19. We theorize how national government policymakers and local government risk managers were objectified by (and subjectified themselves to) risk science models, results, and discourses. From this theoretical position we analyze a dataset, including observations of risk science discourse and 22 qualitative interviews, to understand the challenges that national government policymakers, risk scientists, and local government risk managers faced during COVID-19. Findings from our Foucauldian discourse analysis show how, through power and knowledge, competing discourses emerge in a situation that was disturbed by uncertainty—which created disturbed senders (policymakers and risk scientists) and disturbed receivers (risk managers) of risk science. First, we explore the interaction between risk science and policymakers, including how the disturbed context enabled policymakers to select discourse from risk science to justify their policies. This showed government's sociopolitical leveraging of scientific power and knowledge by positioning itself as being submissive to “follow the science.” Second, we discuss how risk managers (1) were objectified by the discourse from policymakers that required them to be obedient to risk science, and paradoxically (2) used the disturbed context to justify resisting government objectification through their human agency to subjectify themselves and take action. Using these concepts, we explore the foundation of risk science influence in COVID-19.