Legitimation in government social media communication: the case of the Brexit department

When governments introduce controversial policies or face a risk of policy failure, officeholders try to avoid blame and justify their decisions by using various legitimation strategies. This paper focuses on the ways in which legitimations are expressed government social media communication, Twitter posts British government’s Brexit department as an example. We show how may seek legitimacy appealing (1) personal authority individual policymakers, (2) collective (political) organisations, (3) impersonal rules documents, (4) goals effects policy, (5) ‘the will people’, (6) time pressure. The results suggest that official tend rely more references shared values rather than presentation evidence sound arguments.