Politics of expertise and blame during covid-19 quarantine in Chile

Abstract

This article analyzes how Chilean government officials and politicians rhetorically rely on expertise and assign blame for the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically focus on rhetoric surrounding decisions to implement and lift quarantines in Santiago from March through August 2020, which reveals significant discrepancies in how political ideology mediates rationalizations of individual and state responsibilities in times of a pandemic. While the Sebastián Piñera administration and other right-wing politicians emphasize individual responsibility and the government’s reactions to or policing of that responsibility, left-wing politicians and the medical community call for the state to more assertively direct a collective response based on specific metrics and expertise. This contention over the politics of blame and expertise reveals critical tensions in governing visions looming over Chile’s constitutional convention process.