Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
This is a so-called personal version (author’s manuscript as accepted for publishing after
the review process but prior to final layout and copyediting) of the article:
Vaara, Eero. 2014. Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive
Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings. Submission to the special
issue “From Grexit to Grecovery” in Discourse & Society
Researchers are kindly asked to use the official publication in references.
Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation
Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Eero Vaara
Management and Organization
Hanken School of Economics
PB 479, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland
+358 50 3059 359 / +33 6 86 32 67 70
and
EMLYON Business School
Lancaster University
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation
Strategies and their Ideological Underpinnings1
Introduction
Greece and other European countries are currently suffering from a prolonged financial,
social, and political crisis. In this paper, I will focus on an issue that is arguably at the
heart of this crisis: the future of the Eurozone as a transnational institution. If anything,
discussion around the future of the Eurozone can be seen as an institutional legitimacy
crisis (Lounsbury and Hirsch 2010; De Rycker and Mohd Don 2013). To understand the
social and societal dynamics of this crisis, it is useful to focus attention on the discursive
aspects of these legitimation struggles and their implications. Although important in its
own right, such analysis also provides an opportunity to integrate insights from discursive
legitimation in critical discourse studies (Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997; Van Leeuwen and
Wodak, 1999; Oddo, 2011; Breeze, 2012) with institutional legitimation in organization
studies (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005; Vaara and Tienari, 2008) and hence to further
our understanding of institutional legitimation more generally.
Hence, it is the purpose of this paper to elucidate the discursive legitimation struggles in
the institutional Eurozone crisis. By drawing on previous discursive work on
legitimation, I argue that it is fruitful to focus attention on two levels of analysis: first, the
discursive and ideological underpinnings that legitimation is based on, and second, the
variety of discursive legitimation strategies used for legitimation, delegitimation, and
relegitimation. For that purpose, I draw from CDA to understand the discursiveideological basis of legitimation (Fairclough, 1989; van Dijk, 1998; Wodak, 2004) and
especially use the work of Van Leeuwen and his colleagues on the ‘grammar of
legitimation’ (Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999; Van Leeuwen,
2007) to better comprehend the actual discursive legitimation strategies used.
1
I am very grateful for Jo Angouri and Ruth Wodak for their insightful comments and sympathetic
approach in this process. I also wish to thank Pekka Pälli and Jérémy Morales for their insightful
comments, Charlotta Björk for invaluable help in the empirical analysis and David Miller for the language
revision.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
The empirical analysis is based on media discussion in Finland on the Eurozone crisis.
This discussion has focused on the bailout decisions and rescue packages proposed for
Greece and other countries in need of special support. Finland can be seen as a revealing
setting for analysis of legitimation struggles and strategies because discussion here has
involved a variety of perspectives, including eager supporters and critics of the Eurozone.
As in other European countries, the problems of Greece and the other crisis countries in
need of financial support have been juxtaposed with domestic concerns, thereby
highlighting the international dimension of the crisis. Furthermore, actors such as
politicians have also used the crisis to leverage support for their broader political causes,
which also facilitate analysis of the instrumentalization of the crisis.
This paper is structured as follows. Building on research on institutional legitimacy and
discursive legitimation, I outline a critical discursive perspective on institutional
legitimacy crises. This is followed by an introduction of the empirical material and
methods used. The following sections elaborate on the interdiscursive basis of
legitimation and the variety of discursive strategies used for legitimation, delegitimation,
and relegitimation. The conclusion explains how this paper adds to our understanding of
the contemporary crisis and how it helps us to better comprehend the discursive dynamics
of institutional legitimacy crises more generally.
A Critical Discursive Perspective on Institutional Legitimacy Crises
Institutions and legitimacy
The concept of legitimacy has a significant role in sociological analysis in general
(Weber, 1968; Giddens, 1984) and institutional theory in particular (Scott, 1995;
Suchman, 1995; Deephouse and Suchman, 2008). A central characteristic of institutions
is that they are seen as legitimate by social actors (Scott, 1995), and this legitimation
tends to involve specific ‘worlds’ or ‘orders’ (Boltanski and Thevenot, 2006; Patriotta et
al., 2011). From this perspective, unexpected events and controversial actions are most
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
interesting because they can trigger ‘legitimacy crises’ where previous conceptions of
taken-for-grantedness and normalness are challenged. Such crises can take different
forms as in the case of the financial crisis (Lounsbury and Hirsch 2010; Morales et al,
2014).
Institutions are multifaceted structures (Scott, 1995), and thus legitimation also involves
several levels of analysis (Vaara & Tienari, 2008). Apart from the key institution itself,
legitimation deals with specific actions and events related to the institutions, and the
authority positions of the central actors are evaluated in the context of any events or
actions. Thus, the Eurozone crisis challenges the transnational institutional constellation
of the Eurozone and decisions and actions such as specific bailout or rescue package
decisions as well as focus attention on the key actors such as politicians and economic
and financial decision-makers and actors.
In institutional theory, increasing attention has focused on the discursive aspects of
legitimation (Phillips et al., 2004). Researchers have accordingly examined how issues
are framed and how impression management is used in legitimation (Creed et al., 2002;
Maguire and Hardy, 2007). Others have singled out specific elements in rhetorical
justification (Suddaby and Greenwood). In particular, Suddaby and Greenwood (2005)
identified the following kinds of rhetorical strategies for the legitimation of radical
institutional change: ontological (rhetoric based on premises stating what can or cannot
exist or co-exist), historical (appeals to history and tradition), teleological (divine purpose
or final cause), cosmological (an emphasis on inevitability), and value-based
theorizations (appeals to wider belief systems).
Some of this work has also drawn from CDA (Vaara et al., 2006; Vaara and Tienari,
2008; Lefsrud and Meyer, 2012; Zhu & McKenna, 2012). In particular, drawing from
Van Leeuwen’s work (2007), Vaara et al., (2006) took a critical discursive perspective to
identify five types of strategy used for the legitimation of merger: normalization
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
(exemplification of ‘normal’ function or behavior), authorization (authority construction),
rationalization (rationale), moralization (moral basis), and narrativization (construction of
a compelling plot). Others have followed this path. In particular, Lefsrud and Meyer
(2012) have elaborated on authorizations in terms of authority positions and their linkage
to the knowledge basis of expertise. In spite of these advances, work drawing on
discursive legitimation has been rather scarce and marginal in the broader context of
institutional analysis. Thus, in addition to focusing on the specific aspects of the
Eurozone, it is the purpose of this paper to add to this stream of research by elucidating
the discursive dynamics of institutional legitimacy crises.
Discursive legitimation
In discourse analysis in general and CDA in particular, legitimation has arguably been a
key theme for a long time (Van Dijk, 1998; Fairclough, 2003). Its roots may be traced to
Aristotelian rhetorical analysis – especially in terms of its focus on logos, ethos, and
pathos – and classical sociological research (Weber, 1968; Giddens, 1984) from which
contemporary institutional theory has also drawn. In legitimacy crises, legitimation not
only deals with specific issues, decisions, or actions, but is also related to the power
positions of actors and broader social structures – in other words to institutions.
These political aspects of legitimation are particularly interesting, and they can be
analyzed from different kinds of perspectives (Chilton & Schaeffner 1997, van Dijk,
1998; van Leeuwen, 2007). CDA is a particularly fruitful perspective for analysis of these
political aspects as it focuses on power and ideology (Fairclough, 1989). Furthermore,
existing CDA-oriented work on legitimation has elucidated the crucial role of discursive
practices and strategies in legitimation. In particular, Van Leeuwen’s and his colleagues
have worked on the ‘grammar of legitimation’ to elaborate on the discursive strategies
used for legitimation (Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999; Van
Leeuwen, 2007). In this view, legitimation means the creation of a sense of positive,
beneficial, ethical, understandable, necessary, or otherwise acceptable action in a specific
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
setting (Van Dijk, 1998; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999) and delegitimation means
establishing a sense of negative, morally reprehensible, or otherwise unacceptable action
or overall state of affairs (Rojo and Van Dijk 1997; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999). In
addition, one can think of relegitimation as the restoration of a sense of positive,
beneficial, ethical, understandable, necessary, or otherwise acceptable action in a specific
setting.
Legitimation draws on and reproduces broader level discourses and even ideologies (Van
Dijk, 1998; Oddo, 2011). For example, pro-globalization discourses tend to reproduce
neo-liberal (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001) or global capitalist (Fairclough, 2000)
ideologies. From a discursive perspective, ‘nationalism’ in turn is a set of discourses
based on nationalist ideology (Anderson, 1983; Wodak et al., 1999). It is closely linked
with national identity building and is therefore an ever-present discourse, especially in
cross-national settings (Billig, 1995; Wodak et al., 1999). However, it may actually be the
interdiscursive combinations of these discourses and ideologies that are most interesting
in terms of understanding the discursive and ideological underpinnings of legitimation in
specific settings – such as the Eurozone crisis.
In any case, it is important to focus on the actual legitimation strategies – and how they
may be used for legitimation, delegitimation, or relegitimation. In Van Leeuwen’s (2007)
framework, there are four types of legitimation strategy: Authorization is legitimation by
referring to authority, be that a person, tradition, custom, or law. Moral evaluation means
legitimation by reference to value systems, and hence the other legitimation strategies
also have a moral basis. Rationalization is legitimation by reference to knowledge claims
or arguments. Mythopoiesis is legitimation achieved by narratives; these are often small
stories or fragments of narrative structures about the past or future. These main types
involve a number of sub-types and are often connected. Thus, to understand the specific
dynamics of legitimation in particular contexts, such as the Eurozone, it is important to
focus on the typical patterns and characteristics of these discursive strategies in context.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
This leads me to formulate the research questions of this study as follows: What are the
discourses that the legitimation struggles around the future of the Eurozone draw on and
reproduce? What are the discursive strategies used for legitimation, delegitimation, or
relegitimation? What do these kinds of discursive dynamics tell us about how Finland or
others are coping with the crisis?
Empirical material and methodology
This analysis focuses on how media texts in Finland dealt with the Eurozone crisis. Like
Greece, Finland adopted the euro in 2002. Although the country’s economy was hit hard
by the financial crisis, resulting for example in unprecedented budget deficits and
relatively high unemployment, the key rating agencies have continued to give Finland an
AAA rating. It is in general seen as one of the countries in the northern bloc that
emphasizes national responsibility in the crisis, advocates austerity measures, and usually
sides with Germany in these discussions. Finland provides an illuminative example of the
Eurozone crisis because the discussion there reflects a variety of voices and legitimation
strategies. Like in many other European countries, the discussion has involved both
dedicated protagonists and committed antagonists. What is particularly interesting is that
the Eurozone has been linked with national politics in the sense that the parties in the
government, such as the Conservatives, have had to defend their decisions made during
the crisis as well as the Eurozone more generally, whereas the opposition, especially the
True Finns, a relatively new populist party, has been able to leverage this crisis to attract
new support. Characteristically, this discussion has juxtaposed the crisis in Greece and
other southern European countries with the domestic concerns.
The tradition in CDA is to engage in a close reading of specific texts (Fairclough, 2003;
Wodak and Meyer, 2002). Although studying a large number of texts is relatively rare in
CDA, there is an argument for moving from analysis of a large set of texts to close
analysis of individual texts, with the aim of uncovering more general patterns and
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
characteristic features in the media discussions (Vaara, 2010). For the purposes of this
paper, a broader set of texts provides a fuller picture of the legitimating struggles and
provides an opportunity to draw conclusions about the relative importance of specific
discourses and legitimation strategies as well as intertextuality across texts. For this
purpose, I collected a corpus of 496 media texts dealing with the Eurozone crisis from
January 1, 2008 to September 1, 2013. I focused on the leading national newspaper
Helsingin Sanomat, the leading business daily Kauppalehti, the leading online business
daily Taloussanomat, and the leading tabloid Iltasanomat. The key words used to collect
this material were “euro” and “crisis” or “euro” and “the future.” I then removed articles
that did not deal with the actual crisis such as discussions about the level of the exchange
rate or articles focusing on the problems and challenges faced by specific industries or
companies. The final set included 114 articles from Helsingin Sanomat, 122 from
Kauppalehti, 190 from Taloussanomat, and 66 from Iltasanomat.
In practice, the media texts focused on decisions and actions made during the crisis such
as specific rescue packages or bailout decisions concerning Greece, but also Ireland,
Portugal, and Cyprus. Taken together, however, the media texts also provide a ‘metanarrative’ of the crisis where the very ‘euro’ institution was challenged and debated. It
should be noted that this corpus includes various types of articles ranging from editorials
to interviews. It is characteristically intertextual in the sense that it includes a number of
quotes from the speeches or interviews of protagonists and antagonists.
As is often the case in CDA, the analysis was ‘abductive’ in nature (Wodak, 2004). This
means that the theoretical ideas were developed alongside an increasingly targeted
empirical analysis. I first concentrated on the discourses characterizing the legitimation
struggle, that is I searched for an identified discourses that were frequently used by the
protagonists and antagonists and in the media texts more generally. This led me to focus
on four types of discourse-ideological bases: financial capitalism, humanism,
nationalism, and Europeanism. I then focused on the legitimation strategies identified in
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
previous research as a basis for analysis. In practice, I used Van Leeuwen’s (1997)
framework of authorization, rationalization, moralization, and mythopoiesis as the
starting point. This then led to a rough coding of the empirical material to identify such
strategies in the media texts. This coding was subsequently developed and refined, for
example by identifying two types of authorization and a category of cosmological
inevitability claims. As a result, I focused on the following kinds of legitimation
strategies that were frequently used and otherwise played a central role in e discussion
around
the
Eurozone
crisis:
position-based
authorizations,
knowledge-based
authorizations, economic rationalizations, moral evaluations, mythopoietic future
scenarios, and cosmological inevitability claims. They were frequently used in a number
of media texts and seemed to be important elements in the discursive legitimation within
specific texts.
I then proceeded to examine specific examples of texts, in practice paragraphs, to
elucidate the characteristic features of the discursive legitimation, delegitimation or
relegitimation strategies; examples 1-2 relate primarily to position-based authorization, 35 to knowledge-based authorizations, 6-8 to economic rationalizations, 9-12 to moral
evaluations, 13-14 to mythopoietic future scenarios, and 15-16 to cosmological
inevitability claims. These specific examples were selected because they were
representative as well as illustrative examples of legitimation strategies that played an
important role in the media discussion.2
The discourse-ideological basis of legitimation struggles
Discourses provide the basis for legitimation, and the identification of the key discourses
helps to understand the order of discourse and their interdiscursive relations (Fairclough,
2003) as well as their ideological underpinnings (Van Dijk, 1998). As explained above, I
identified the following frequently used discourses in the media texts: financial
2
The actual analysis was conducted in Finnish and the examples provided are
translations into English. It should be noted that such translations are not unproblematic
as nuances are unavoidably lost.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
capitalism, humanism, nationalism, and Europeanism. Broadly understood, the discourse
of financial capitalism played a central role in the media texts in general and in the
discursive legitimation strategies in particular. Characteristic of this discourse is that it
focuses on global capitalism (Fairclough, 2006) in a way that promotes and naturalizes
neoliberal ideology (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001; Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999),
that is the dominance of the free-market economy and the central role of global financial
markets. This was shown especially in the central role of economic expertise (see
especially examples 3-5 below), the dominance economic arguments (6-7), the nature of
future projections (13-14) and the sense of inevitability often associated with
globalization (15-16) – as will be elaborated on in the following sections on legitimacy
strategies.
Interestingly, this discourse of financial capitalism was questioned at times, although not
often (see especially example 12). Such critical comments can be linked with humanism
focusing on the human, social, and societal implications instead of the dominance of
financial logic. At times, the texts could also reflect more radical humanism (Held,
McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton, 1999) as an alternative ideological basis for making
sense of the Eurozone crisis.
Nationalism (Anderson, 1983; Wodak et al., 1999) played a crucial role in the media
texts and the discursive legitimation strategies. This was especially salient in
moralizations (see especially examples 9 and 11), but also reflected in the other
discursive strategies. Interestingly, especially antagonists such as the True Finns often
drew from banal nationalism (Billig, 1995) where colorful nationalistic language and
associated discursive means such as metaphors and national stereotypes played a central
role (9). However, nationalism was also a crucial part of rationalizations in the sense that
the constructed national interests were often the basis for rationalistic argumentation (6)
as well as future projections (14). Some of the most simplistic forms of banal nationalism
were also criticized (11).
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Related to the very future of the Eurozone, most of the media texts and the discursive
legitimation strategies can also be seen to deal with European identity or what could be
called Europeanism, that is with the belief that Europeans have common values and
interests that transcend national identity (Majstorović, 2007). This ideology in the making
seemed to be a central part of the legitimating authorizations (see especially examples 1
and 3) and rationalizations (6), moralizations (10), future projections (13), and cosmology
(15). However, perhaps because of the nationalistic challenges, the explicit articulations
of pro-European views or European interests were relatively rare in the moralization and
rationalization strategies, typical future projections, and cosmological arguments.
Thus, the institutional legitimacy crisis involved several types of discourse and
reproduced related ideological assumptions. Central to these struggles was not only the
juxtaposition of alternative discourses and ideologies, but also the fact that the discursive
legitimation strategies were most often interdiscursive in nature. In particular, rather than
only reflecting specific discursive or ideological bases, the protagonists and antagonists
often combined various discursive and ideological elements in their discursive
strategizing. Thus, for example moral positions, interests at play, or future scenarios were
often contextual interdiscursive articulations with specific ideological implications, as the
more detailed analysis of the legitimation strategies below reveals.
Discursive strategies
More specifically, I identified the following types of legitimation strategies: positionbased authorizations involving institutionalized authorities and ‘voices of the common
man,’ knowledge-based authorizations focusing on economic expertise, rationalizations
concentrating on economic arguments, moral evaluations based on unfairness used
especially for delegitimation, mythopoiesis involving alternative future scenarios, and
cosmology used to construct inevitability.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Position-based authorization: Institutional authorities and ‘voices of the common man’
At one level, the texts frequently referred to key decision-makers such as politicians.
They played a central role in the texts; they were often portrayed as the key protagonists
and antagonists and their comments constituted a fundamental intertextual part of the
media texts. These were specifically used for authorization purposes in the articles.
Interestingly, support for the euro often involved references to those in positions of
responsibility. Thus, for example members of the European Commission, such as the
Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn; European politicians, such
as Angela Merkel; representatives of the European Central Bank, such as Jean-Claude
Trichet; and local politicians, such as the Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, were
often referred to for authorization purposes and emerged as the key protagonists in the
media texts. Thus, their institutionalized positions served for as a primary reference point
for discursive authorization. Example 1 below is a typical example:
Example 1
The EU Commissioner Olli Rehn paid a quick visit to Finland and told IS
[Iltasanomat, a tabloid] that the situation is very grave. – Surely the most serious
crisis of the euro so far. But that is why we need to take committed action to
ensure that the financial stability of the Eurozone can be maintained. Finland has
promised to help Greece with a loan of 550 million euros at most. According to
Rehn, this is no longer about Greece alone. – That Finnish taxpayers, like all
Eurozone taxpayers, would support Greece means in actual fact that we support
financial stability in the entire Eurozone. It’s about the stability of Eurozone,
Rehn emphasized. (IS 28.4.2010)
What is interesting in this example is that it highlights Olli Rehn’s institutionalized
authority position as a EU Commissioner who visits his home country to share his views
with the Finns. The authorization thus implies that he had unique knowledge of specific
relevance for the Finns. This paves the way for his actual comments that provide
rationalizations for supporting the euro. Rationalizations are dealt with in more detail in
the following sub-section, but it is important to note how he combines financial capitalist,
nationalist, and Europeanist discourses in explaining why the Finns should support the
Greek bailout package. It was noteworthy how this is manifested in instrumental
rationalization where “(financial) stability” (mentioned three times) is presented as the
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
overall goal and in the careful wording of how the responsibility of the Finns is based on
earlier commitment (“promised”), limited (“a loan of 550 million euros at most”) and
follows the norm of equality between the Eurozone nations (“like all Eurozone
taxpayers”). Such features also characterized many other texts reproducing the comments
of the protagonists.
In contrast, others were referred to for delegitimation purposes and emerged as
antagonists. This was especially the case with the political opposition, such as Timo
Soini, leader of the True Finns, who became came a frequently cited ‘voice of the
common man’ or spokesperson of resistance to the euro. Thus, his authority position was
based on juxtaposition of the ‘establishment’ against the interests of ordinary people.
References to Soini his interviews or blogs were often used for delegitimation purposes.
The following is a typical example:
Example 2
Chairman Timo Soini (TF) [True Finns] is happy if and when the True Finns are
the only Euro party of resistance. – The True Finns know. The euro is a system
that does not function. Now we are focusing on the crisis of the euro. First we pay
for guarantees and provide capital for banks and with what is left contaminate the
rest of Europe, says Soini. If the euro is a success story, then please don’t make
any more. Three Eurozone countries are already in receivership, and a couple of
others are on their way there. (IS 31.5.2012)
In this excerpt, Soini’s chairmanship of the True Finns is emphasized and the entire party
is portrayed as the critical voice in the discussion (e.g. “the only party of euro euroresistance”). What is interesting in the first sentence of the excerpt and in the first
sentence of the quotation is that Soini explicitly reinforces the role of the True Finns as
the euro skeptics in Finland. The rest of the comment rationalizes delegitimation, which
is a topic that I will focus on in the next sub-section. However, it is worth emphasizing
that a powerful authorization of this kind provided the necessary basis for rather
straightforward delegitimating arguments and blunt statements drawing from nationalistic
discourse. In particular, the delegitimating rationalizations seem to build on the
juxtaposition of “us” (Finns as represented by the True Finns and Soini) and “them” (the
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
elite making decisions that are harmful for the Finns and Europe), as reflected in the use
of the pronoun “we” in the third and fourth sentence of his comment. Interestingly, such
comments from the antagonists were frequently colored with metaphors (e.g.,
“contaminate” and “receivership”) and often sarcastic in tone, portraying decisionmaking by the elite in a dubious light (especially in the last two sentences of Soini’s
comment).
Knowledge-based authorization: Dominance of economic expertise
At another level, authorizations were based on expertise and knowledge. In particular,
economists were given voice in these discussions. This included both experts who
defended the Eurozone and those who opposed it. The following is a particularly salient
example of the framing of an argument in support of the euro:
Example 3
The joint currency has strong support in Professor Juha-Pekka Kallunki, whose
widespread international reputation comes from the analysis of stock and foreign
exchange markets. “There are so-called doctors of doom around the euro for
whom making the joint currency fail has almost become their life’s mission. But
we should remember that the European Central Bank and the civil servants are
working all the time to get the [European] economies past the crisis,” says
Kallunki. (KL 24.6.2013)
Here Professor Kallunki’s expertise is explicitly constructed by reference to his
“widespread international reputation,” which is furthermore presented as particularly
relevant because it relates to “stock and foreign exchange markets.” What is interesting in
his comment is that he explicitly attacks the experts on the other side, referring to them as
“doctors of doom.” At the same time, he provides obvious support for those working to
save the euro, including a reference to their work ethic (“working continuously”). Thus,
the whole paragraph builds on authorization, including de-authorization of the
antagonists.
However, economists and financial analysts were also referred to as authorities in
delegitimation. The following is an illustrative example:
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Example 4
The Eurozone is plagued by an internal balance-of-payments crisis, which,
according to the German Professor Hans-Werner Sinn and his colleagues, is
similar to the problems of the Bretton Woods systems of fixed exchange rates
before they collapsed. (KL 8.12.2011)
In this excerpt, authorization is a central part of the argument; in fact, the delegitimating
rationalization concerning “an internal balance-of-payments crisis” is followed by an
authorization that builds on scientific authority and historical comparison. These
discussions thus constituted a struggle for economic authority, the intensity of which was
at times reflected in colorful language (e.g. the metaphor “plagued” in this example).
However, it should be noted that the statements of experts were also used rather
instrumentally without taking into consideration their entire arguments.
Finally, there is yet another aspect of authorization that played a key role in the media
texts. It seems that the ‘markets’ were constructed as central authorities evaluating the
success or failure of efforts to rescue the Eurozone. The following is a typical example of
reporting after a key decision made by the European Central Bank:
Example 5
The markets responded in an excited way after the European Union and the
European Central Bank (ECB) had announced their support package to stabilize
the Eurozone economy on Monday morning. Prices on European stock exchanges
rose strongly and interest rates for government bonds of the crisis countries
decreased. Especially banking shares strengthened throughout Europe as fears that
the problems would evolve into a banking crisis were alleviated. (HS 11.5.2013)
In this excerpt, the fact-like description of reactions to the support package reproduces
the authority role of stock and foreign exchange markets in legitimating the decision on
the rescue package, which can be seen as a key characteristic of the discourse and
ideology of financial capitalism. Linguistically, this kind of authorization could be
accentuated by personification as in the “excited” response in the first sentence of this
excerpt. Although such explicit personification is lacking in the latter sentences,
nevertheless “stock exchanges,” “interest rates,” and “banking shares” are the subjects of
these sentences. These observations suggest that ‘market-based authorization’ of this kind
may represent a combination of what van Leeuwen calls ‘expert authority’ (2007, 107)
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
and ‘impersonal authority’ (2007, 2008).
Rationalization: Focus on economic arguments
Rationalizations were a key part of the discursive legitimation struggles. They were used
in the media texts in a number of ways for and against specific rescue packages or the
euro in general. Economic arguments were used most frequently, and – as discussed
above – they were often backed up by authorizations building upon economic knowledge.
For the protagonists, it was often a case of arguing for the benefits of the Eurozone or
referring to the costs of letting the Eurozone fail. The following is a typical example
focusing on unemployment:
Example 6
Olli Rehn calculates that letting Greece go bankrupt in the spring would have
made more than 86,000 people unemployed here. Now the survival of the euro is
also in the Finnish interest. (TS 5.20.2012)
This excerpt exemplifies use of instrumental economic arguments and numbers in the
rationalizations, which was frequent in the media texts even if the arguments themselves
could be debated or contested. The use of numbers is a classical means of legitimation
(Potter et al, 1991) and was frequently used in these media texts; nevertheless, the
calculations behind them or the bases for them were rarely explicitly explained. In this
case, credibility comes from the authorization that starts the first sentence (”Olli Rehn
calculates”). Importantly, this legitimating argument – like many others – is based on the
‘national interest’ of the Finns, which is explicitly stated in the second sentence. Thus,
the example shows how economic rationalizations often drew explicitly on nationalistic
discourse as well.
Similarly, economic arguments were also used for delegitimation. As mentioned above,
some of these arguments focused on the inherent systemic problems of the euro:
Example 7
Overall, common rules do not help because the economies of the Eurozone
countries are too different. A group of completely different kinds of countries
belongs to the euro because of the prevailing global belief that bigger is always
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
better. This megalomaniac thinking has led to the collapse of many empires in the
course of history. (TS 7.12.2011)
In this excerpt, the rationalization delegitimation is based on two arguments: that the
Eurozone countries are not similar enough and that there is a false assumption among the
protagonists that scale brings advantages. Thus, the delegitimating rationalization can be
seen as a counter-argument in the inter-textual media discussion. In the last sentence, the
protagonists’ project is heavily criticized with a hyperbole (”megalomaniac thinking”)
and an historical juxtaposition (”the collapse of many empires”) that are examples of the
discursive vehicles often used by the antagonists in their rationalizations of
delegitimation. At least equally prominent were the explicitly nationalistic arguments
concentrating on the costs of the rescue packages and bailouts for the Finns. They often
involved moral evaluation and will be discussed in the following section.
However, often even the critical texts that focused on major problems with the Eurozone
as an institution concluded that it is still worth preserving because of a lack of
alternatives. They can be seen as relegitimating counter-arguments in the wider intertextual discussion as the following example shows:
Example 8
The euro in its current structure and current composition is an unworthy currency
that should never have been established, says Donovan categorically. Yet
according to him the euro is here to stay. It is easier and better to fix the
deficiencies of the euro and the monetary union than to let the euro fail – Chief
Economist Paul Donovan of the Swiss bank UBS (TS 4.9.2011).
This example builds upon authorization (based on an appeal to “Chief Economist
Donovan”) and involves consequentialist argumentation. The logic of the relegitimating
argument is to accept the critical arguments of the antagonists, but to conclude that
saving the euro is still worthwhile when compared with the consequences of allowing it
to fail.
Moral evaluation: Moral delegitimation and legitimation by (un)fairness
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Moral evaluation was an inherent part of the media texts. This was especially the case
with delegitimation, which tended to focus on the unfairness of the rescue packages and
the euro as a whole. Thus, the rationalistic arguments were frequently combined with
moral evaluations as in the following example:
Example 9
If we think about the mechanism according to which those who play unfairly are
rewarded. I wonder whether a bank manager would call a Finnish entrepreneur
[and say] that we’re going to lower your interest rate and extend the period for
your loan. That’s not going to happen to an ordinary citizen. (IS 22.7.2011)
As this example shows, moralizations regarding delegitimation frequently drew on
nationalistic discourse and used means such as national stereotypes (Wodak et al., 1999)
and ‘us-versus-them’ comparisons (Oddo, 2011). In this excerpt, Soini insinuates that the
Greeks and others needing rescue packages “play unfairly,” which is a typical stereotype
alongside others such as “opportunistic,” “bending the rules,” or “untrustworthy” in
similar texts based on comments by Soini or other members of the ‘True Finns’. The
Greeks are contrasted with the Finns, who are implicitly depicted as “obeying the rules”;
in other articles they were more explicitly described as “hard-working” and
“trustworthy.” These stereotypes are central parts of the moral evaluation where the
Greeks in need of support, i.e. the rescue package in question, are constructed as
engaging in morally questionable opportunism whilst the Finns (exemplified by the
metonymy of the “Finnish entrepreneur” and the “ordinary citizen”) are seen as suffering
from the situation.
Interestingly, explicit moral evaluations used for legitimating purposes were less
frequent. That is, unlike the antagonists focusing on unfairness, the moral evaluations of
the protagonists were often less apparent and closely linked with rationalizations. This
typically involved the following kinds of statements:
Example 10
I know that this is a difficult issue for the member states. At the same time the
member states are committed to seeing the Greek economy reconstructed and
their [that of the Greeks] ability to deal with debt strengthened, Rehn says with
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
reference to a statement made by the Eurogroup in November 2012. (KL
17.9.2013)
In this example, the moral legitimation builds on “commitment” that can be seen as
coming from Eurozone membership (Europeanism) in general (the first sentence) and
fulfilling earlier promises in particular (second sentence). It is interesting that Rehn’s
comment also recognizes the complexity of the issues (“this is a difficult issue for the
member states”) and emphasizes the efforts that the Greeks themselves are making (their
ability to deal with the debt); one can speculate that such elements serve as useful
rhetorical means vis-à-vis the arguments of antagonists criticizing the moral basis of the
rescue packages.
Interestingly, the nationalistic discourse of the antagonists could also be criticized. The
following is a typical example:
Example 11
Timo Soini, the Chairman of the True Finns, would throw the southern European
countries out of the euro. The monetary union would consist only of the Protestant
north. According to an interview in Kaleva [a Finnish newspaper], only Germany,
Holland, the Baltic countries, and the Nordic countries would be good enough for
Soini. Somehow Soini’s proposal smells like a club of ‘Germanic’ partners. Even
France would have to leave. (KL 21.8.2012)
In this excerpt, the focus is on the nationalistic (and occasionally even racist) discourse of
the True Finns that is criticized explicitly. Interestingly, by using irony, the protagonists
were able at times to undermine the basis of the moralizations that played a central role in
the discourse of the antagonists.
Finally, there was yet another type of moralization that warrants attention. In some
moralizations, the blame was shifted from the European establishment or the politicians
in power to the financial markets:
Example 12
Chairman of the Grand Committee Erkki Tuomioja (Social Democrats) said on
Ykkösaamu [a TV program] that the crisis in Greece is about moral destruction. –
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
We live in a world where profits are private, but losses are socialized and
everyone takes some responsibility, says Tuomioja. (IS 8.5.2010)
In this example, Erkki Tuomioja – a well-known critical thinker and thus an authority –
draws from humanistic discourse to criticize the logic of financial capitalism. In
particular, moralization focuses on the responsibilities of the financial sector in relation to
nation-states and moral judgment is expressed in a compelling juxtaposition of “profits
are private, but losses are socialized.”
Mythopoiesis: Alternative future projections
The media texts included mythopoietic legitimation and delegitimation strategies. In
particular, future projections constituted an important facet of the institutional
legitimation struggles. In these projections, which resemble ‘imaginaries’ (Fairclough
and Thomas 2004), the contrast between the future and the present in the narrative
structure was often explicit, while the narrative elements were often more implicit. These
future projects included ‘nightmare scenarios.’ For example, Prime Minister Jyrki
Katainen commented upon the rescue of Ireland as follows:
Example 13
According to Katainen, no one can answer the question of whether the support
will stop with Ireland. Our intention is to avoid a total catastrophe, a European
wide recession and to contain the problem, because according to the best
economic experts not providing loans to Ireland would lead - with great
probability - to a chain reaction and to a European recession. (IS 21.1.2010).
In addition to the authorization (reference to “economic experts”) and consequentialist
rationalization (especially the arguments related to “avoid,” “contain,” and “leading”),
this excerpt involves a narrative structure typical of such future projections. Also,
legitimating discourse of this kind often included hyperbolic dramatization as in the
choice of the words “total catastrophe.”
Future projections also served delegitimation. More specifically, the delegitimating
projections often involved ‘nightmare scenarios’ comprising increased bailout payments
20
Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
and loss of employment as well as the ultimate collapse of the euro:
Example 14
“Soini sees at the end of the European Stability Mechanism an obligation of one
hundred billion for Finland: Apparently we will have to sink with this Titanic …
Soini compares the rescue operation with the boiling of a frog.” (24.9.2012)
Vivid imagery of this kind was typical of statements by the antagonists. Here the future
of the euro is likened to the sinking of the Titanic with associated images of erroneous
decisions and the well-known boiling frog story according to which a frog placed in cold
water will not perceive the danger if the temperature is increased gradually. Thus, this
example shows how metaphors and hyperboles were frequently used by the antagonists to
construct delegitimating future scenarios.
Cosmology: Legitimation and delegitimation based on inevitability
Interestingly, these future projections were often linked with a strategy of cosmological
argumentation (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005) that implies inevitability. Such
inevitability arguments were frequently used in the media texts. In the case of
legitimation, these cosmological strategies often led to the conclusion that specific
measures to save the euro were the ‘only choice’:
Example 15
A solution to the Eurozone crisis must be found immediately. The current
measures are inadequate, they come too late, and they increase the global
economic turmoil. (HS 12.10.2011 – an excerpt from a statement made by leading
European politicians)
As this excerpt shows, the cosmological legitimation strategies were usually based on
authorization and involved rationalization that paved the way for construction of
inevitability. These cosmological legitimation strategies were characterized by deontic
modality (“must”) in terms of a clear obligation assigned to key decision-makers.
Cosmology was at times also used for delegitimating purposes. In such cases the focus
was usually on the inevitable collapse of the euro:
21
Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
Example 16
For example the British economist Roger Bootle has stated that at least a partial
dissolution of the Eurozone is inevitable because of the need for devaluation in
the crisis countries. Without it, restoring economic growth will be a painful road
[lasting] as long as ten years. Unemployment will explode and there will be
massive cutbacks. Scarily enough, Bootle predicted the dotcom bubble and the
mortgage crisis. (KL 5.11.2012)
This example shows how in addition to authorizations (especially in the first and last
sentences referring to Bootle’s qualifications and success in previous predictions),
rationalizations (in the first three sentences including rational argument structures) and
future projections (in the first three sentences), delegitimation builds on cosmological
inevitability. In this excerpt, inevitability is constructed by the use of that very word in
the first sentence as well as the future tense of “will” in the second and third sentence,
which can be seen as an indication of the modality of necessity. As this example shows,
such claims of cosmological inevitability were usually based on the use of linguistic
means such as modality, which added a sense of inevitability to other legitimation
strategies.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article has been to elucidate the discursive dynamics in the legitimacy
crisis that the Eurozone as a transnational institution is facing. By so doing, it helps us to
better understand the current crisis in Greece and other European countries and also
makes a theoretical contribution to research on discursive legitimation.
This analysis contributes to our understanding of the current financial, social and political
crisis in Greece and other European countries and especially the ways in which the crisis
is linked with the future of the Eurozone. Whilst we already know about the institutional
aspects and implications of the financial crisis (Lounsbury and Hirsch 2010; Morales et
al, 2014) and there is research on the linguistic aspects of societal crises (Fairclough and
Fairclough, 2008; De Rycker and Mohd Don 2013), the legitimacy struggles
characterizing the Eurozone crisis have been largely ignored, which is unfortunate given
the significance of the crisis and the various social and societal implications.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
This analysis reveals specific characteristics of the crisis that in particular facilitate our
understanding of how Europeans, in this case the Finns, make sense of the crisis. First,
the study focuses attention on the inherent tension between the protagonists and
antagonists. The Finnish discussion was characterized by a juxtaposition of the elite
justifying the need to support Greece and other countries and the ‘common people’
resisting and questioning the legitimacy of these decisions and actions. Although such
questioning plays an important role in voicing alternative views, our analysis shows that
resistance may also be used for instrumental purposes such as in the mustering of support
for populist parties such as the True Finns. Second, while this analysis underscores the
interdiscursive basis of legitimation, nationalism deserves special attention in its own
right. This analysis shows that nationalism continues to play a crucial role in making
sense of the future of the euro. It can be seen in constructions such as ‘national interest,’
which helped to concretize the implications for Finns. However, such nationalism could
also take the form of ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig, 1995; Wodak et al.), 1999) building on
and spreading simplistic and even dangerous stereotypes. Third, this analysis also reveals
the challenges inherent in the construction of European identity. As our analysis
indicates, financial markets are often seen as the ultimate authorities in determining the
future of the euro and nationalistic interests easily override European concerns such as
solidarity with Greece or with others in trouble. Nevertheless, the Eurozone seems to
persist, and it may well be that an eventual financial and societal recovery in Greece and
other European countries will also provide a stronger platform for the voicing of proEuropean views – including solidarity across Europe.
In addition to the crisis of the Eurozone per se, this analysis makes a more general
theoretical contribution in that it elucidates the discursive dynamics of institutional
legitimacy crises. Prior research in discourse analysis has already focused attention on
discursive legitimation strategies (Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997; Van Leeuwen and Wodak,
1999; Oddo, 2011; Reyes, 2011; Breeze, 2012; Zhu and McKenna, 2012) and this work
23
Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
has been mobilized in studies in institutional analysis (Vaara and Tienari, 2008; Lefsrud
& Meyer, 2012). The current paper adds to this stream of research by elucidating the
interdiscursive and ideological underpinnings of legitimation on the one hand and the
specific legitimation, delegitimation, and relegitimation strategies on the other. Thus, the
paper provides an example of how institutional legitimacy crises can be analyzed more
generally – moving from an interdiscursive mapping of the discursive resources to a
detailed analysis of legitimation strategies. In addition, it analysis also points to
interesting aspects of legitimation that have received relatively inadequate attention in
previous research such as the multifaceted nature of authorization, the various forms of
moralizations and their inter-relationships, the central role of nightmare-type future
projections, and the importance of constructions of cosmological inevitability. In all, this
analysis shows that it is crucial to focus attention on the multiple facets of legitimation to
understand the overall dynamics of legitimation, delegitimation, and relegitimation. Thus,
this study can help to advance ongoing research on legitimation in discourse analysis,
offer a framework for a better understanding of the role of discourse in legitimacy crises
in institutional theory, and help to promote trans-disciplinary research on institutional
legitimacy.
This study has its limitations. The analysis focused on the Finnish discussion, and the
discursive patterns and strategies could be different in other countries depending on the
national heritage and political and economic circumstances. It would therefore be
interesting to compare both the Finnish discussion with that in other countries and the
various media internationally. This study has focused on patterns typical of the discursive
level. Future research could go further in concentrating on the textual level and linguistic
vehicles and processes; for example, different forms of argumentation, the use of
pronouns, the role of tropes such as metaphor, metonomy and irony, and the varying
forms of modality are topics that warrant specific attention in future research. Rather than
patterns across texts, it would also be interesting to examine particular texts in detail, to
compare different genres, and to examine intertextual and interdiscursive linkages. It
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
would also be interesting to examine the genre and discourse chains in texts and across
texts to gain more insights into interdiscursivity. In addition to texts, future studies could
focus attention on multimodality, in particular the role of visual and audial phenomena in
the media (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) as well as how the social media may differ
from the more traditional news media.
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Struggles over Legitimacy in the Eurozone Crisis: Discursive Legitimation Strategies and Their Ideological Underpinnings
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