Critical policy argumentation in Covid controversies: From statistics to political values

This chapter illustrates the logic of critical policy argumentation with the case of Covid-19 policy. After a discussion of the role of numbers in policy analysis, the analysis shows that all of the arguments offered for and against Covid policy interventions can be located across the four levels of policy argumentation. Despite the importance of the empirical data, the analysis illustrates how the controversies surrounding the policy measures cannot be resolved with statistics alone. To understand the nature of Covid policy arguments, the statistical results need to be interpretively situated in the relevant social and political contexts. This is demonstrated by showing how Covid information takes on meaning in situational, systemic, and ideological contexts that characterize the discursive realm. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the way policy deliberation and social learning can assist Covid policymaking.