What role for solidarity? A frame analysis of the solidarity conceptions of the German Laender governments in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Solidarity experienced a revival during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been an important component of the political discourse in every economic—and therefore also the social—crisis that hit Europe in the last years. This contribution aims to assess the relevance that members of German governing parties at the Laender level attached to solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic. By conducting a frame analysis, we identify calls to different types of solidarity, and brought these in relation to the explanatory power of situational aspects, economic interests and party-political positions. Empirical analysis displays that solidarity is an important, albeit not too frequently used frame, in crisis dialogue. High threat perception (but not actual threat) appears to foster claims to solidarity and other forms of communal behaviour, while the economic situation and party-political stances do not exhibit an equally strong effect. Nevertheless, aligned party-political positions on solidarity go along with a reduced understanding of the concept, which primarily serves as a justification for placing a burden on the caretakers of society. This traditional notion of solidarity is even more prominent amongst leftist party members, a fact raising questions concerning the distinctiveness of German party positions, as well as concerning social equality.

KEYWORDS:

• Solidarity
• political sociology
• COVID-19 pandemic
• federal policy
• frame analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We thank Dr. Katharina McLarren (MPIL) for proof reading the manuscript.

2 The terms Bundesland, federal state, and Land and their plural forms are used interchangeably throughout the article.

3 We define frequently used frames as those frames that have a share of more than 1 per cent of mentionings. Other elements are included in a residual category that goes by ‘Others’. Table 3 offers an overview.

4 See Federal Government of Bavaria 2020 (a); Federal Government of Baden-Wurttemberg 2020 (a); Senate Hamburg 2020 (a); Senate Berlin 2020 (a); Federal Government of Saarland 2020 (a); Federal Government of Brandenburg 2020 (a).