The role of trust in the discursive construction of legitimacy and authority. The first address on Covid-19 in Argentina

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the first address to the Nation of the Argentinian President Alberto Fernández dealing with the health crisis of the Covid-19. At the time of the emergence of the virus, Fernández was new to his duties. The population of Argentina, a country that lives in an almost constant economic, social and political instability, is particularly suspicious of politicians and institutions. Even if the legitimacy of the new president was conferred upon him by a democratic election, he had to build a trust-inspiring discourse in order to strengthen the citizens’ belief in the legitimacy of the institutions as well as of the elect president, and to construct an authority allowing him to impose measures against the virus without resorting to violence. The notions of trust, legitimacy and authority are the pillars of this analysis which shows how they are discursively constructed and woven in the texture of Fernández’s address at the very beginning of an unprecedented world sanitary crisis.