Experts et politiques dans la gestion de la crise de la COVID-19 en Belgique : conflit de territoires et récit médiatique

The coronavirus crisis has upset the Belgian institutional balance, leading to an exceptional transfer of power to the federal government. This shift has remarkably put an end to the political crisis that the country was going through since the elections of May 2019. The Belgian management of the Covid-19 first followed its consociational tradition, through interinstitutional dialogue and cooperation with civil society. However, this cooperation was soon shaped by the evolution of relations between politicians and experts and conflicts over the definition of their respective roles and identities. To what extent have the experts assumed a political role? By doing so, did they act as partners, competitors, opponents, or even substitutes to the public authorities, particularly regarding communication with the citizens? To what extent has the collective and consensual ethos of the epistemic community given way to confrontational individual ethos? Drawing on political science research, this paper employs qualitative discourse analysis for studying the relations between politicians and experts during the COVID-19 crisis as painted by the press. Its corpus includes institutional and expert discourses, as well as their coverage by the main Belgian media, between 13 March and 30 November 2020. The analysis first aims at showing the role of self and other representations in the intersubjective construction of meaning and in the building of power relationships between main actors. It secondly focuses on the discursive formation and professional identity they use in their discourse : do they show themselves as knowledge producers or as political decision-makers? The results of the analysis outline three successive configurations. Within the first collegial configuration, political decision remains with the government, even if it relies on scientists’ expertise. Within the second configuration, still marked by collegiality but moving towards co-decision, the experts become partners of the political authorities. The third configuration breaks the collegiality and puts forward individualities – “super-experts” – in competition for decision-making and public communication ownership. The debate moved from consultation bodies’ meetings and press conferences to multiple and more pervasive public spaces. The press coverage of these alternative public spheres emphasises the constant renegotiation of identities between experts and politicians, leading towards a government of experts.