“I WANT TO SAY THAT THIS IS NOT CORRECT” A qualitative discourse analysis of blame making and blame avoidance in the ‘Fosen case’

Abstract

The ‘green transition’ can entail appropriating land areas for renewable energy development. This poses a dilemma for the Norwegian government by putting its identities as both a human rights protector and climate leader against each other. In the ‘Fosen case’, a historic Supreme Court verdict ruled that wind farms at Fosen violate the local indigenous Sami’s human rights. Despite this, the government withheld apologizing for and acknowledging it being a violation for over 500 days, sparking public blame discourses and raising questions about Norway’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law. This illustrates the difficulty for Norway to balance its two positive but now conflicting identities and respond to blame. By drawing on previous blame avoidance research, blame avoidance theory, and analytical frameworks for discursive strategies to analyze a transcript from a pivotal Parliament meeting, this thesis aims to describe how language was used in the Fosen blame game and how the government upheld its conflicting identities. The results demonstrate the importance of emotional appeals, misrepresentation of claims, reference to laws, and highlighting of negative impacts and hypocrisy in blame making, and the importance of justification, rationalization, denials, and positive self-presentation in the government’s blame avoidance. By describing how the opposition and the government employed discursive strategies in the blame game, this thesis helps explain the unique case while building on blame avoidance theory. Additionally, the thesis discusses the role of colonial history and environmental discourses in the government’s victory.