Monotonous or Pluralistic Public Discourse? Reason-giving and dissent in Denmark’s and Sweden’s early 2020 COVID-19 responses

COVID-19 outbreaks forced governments into epic policy choices conciliating democratic legitimacy and science-based policies. We examine conditions for citizens to deliberate over pandemic response policies and propose two ideal-types that public discourses may tend toward. One is pluralism, which includes authoritative voices that represent viable alternative policies and credible reasons for them. The opposite is monotony, where authoritative voices offer credible reasons for one policy option only. To characterize epistemic and political leading voices in relation to these ideal-types, the article asks: (i) were elected leaders or leading experts the official voices of COVID-19 response, and what did they say? And (ii) have national COVID-19 discourses represented arguments for policy alternatives evenly, or skewed in favour of national policy?