An interpretive discourse network analysis of post-pandemic economic recovery across EU institutions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55016/ojs/jcph.vi.79904Abstract
Post-COVID economic recovery agendas emphasise health, sustainability, and resilience. However, how to make economies more health-promoting – and how the relationship between economy and health is best governed – is contestable and normative. This article offers an interpretive use of Discourse Network Analysis to explore the ideas underlying the EU’s economic recovery discourse and the place of health within it. It analyses how documents published in 2020 by various EU institutions talk about health and about economic recovery, shedding light on the relationship between ideas on these topics, and how they form a multifaceted discourse. We suggest that the discourse on economic recovery is underpinned by three ‘idea clusters’ that represent facets of the overarching discourse: ‘Economic and Monetary Union’, ‘Social Europe’, and ‘European Health Union’. We show how socioeconomic ideas, largely from the ‘Social Europe’ cluster, along with health security, are the main bridges that hold the discourse together by argumentatively connecting economic recovery and health. We also highlight that, except for the European Central Bank, idea clusters do not reflect specific institutions, but that all clusters feature in parts of institutions, underscoring that it is important not to treat institutions as monoliths, but to unpack the nuances present within them.
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