Communicating austerity measures during times of crisis: A comparative empirical analysis of four heads of government

Abstract

This article develops a coherent framework for analyzing policy communication;

Conceptualizes how policy communication can be understood as a function of contextual factors;

Empirically maps the policy communication of four political leaders.

Points to the importance of political competition and welfare culture for systematic variation in policy communication.

To what extent are political leaders’ policy communications shaped by the context in which they act? This article addresses this so far largely disregarded question by means of a systematic comparison of broader communication profiles. Based on a content analysis, it empirically maps how Mario Monti, Mariano Rajoy, Enda Kenny and David Cameron communicated austerity policies, which meant considerable cuts in the welfare state, during the European debt crisis. The findings suggest that a lower degree of political competition manifests in political leaders’ communication in terms of a more consensual stance. The evidence is also partly in line with the assumption that liberal welfare culture allows for a policy communication that is more strongly based on norm- and value-based justifications. Surprisingly, the expectation that the crisis condition led to a stronger emphasis on the costs/risks of the status quo is not borne out in the data.