Opposition parties in times of pandemics

Abstract

ABSTRACT The first political casualties of crises are often opposition parties. In such times, there is a tendency to rally around leadership and value collective solidarity above all partisan considerations. We use data from parliamentary speeches, media interventions, and a series of interviews with key Quebec provincial parliamentarians to test whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the strategies of opposition critics in the context of a Westminster system. Focusing on the Quebec Legislative Assembly – but hoping to shed light on other comparable contexts – we observe a shift from critical toward rather propositional interventions, especially during the first wave of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, while there does not seem to be a differentiated strategy between the parliamentary and media interventions of opposition critics. Finally, if the reduction in personal attacks we expected is supported by the analysis of media interventions, this pattern diverges in parliament.