Open Access
Riders on the storm : the politics of disruption in European member states during the COVID-19 pandemic
Loading...
Files
Riders_on_the_storm_2022.pdf (258.46 KB)
Embargoed until 2024 (Final Accepted Version)
License
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISBN
ISSN
2159-9165; 2159-9173
Issue Date
Type of Publication
Keyword(s)
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
East European politics, 2022, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 551-570
Cite
ANGHEL, Veronica, JONES, Erik, Riders on the storm : the politics of disruption in European member states during the COVID-19 pandemic, East European politics, 2022, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 551-570 - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/74869
Abstract
This paper explores how democracies handle the trade-off between public safety and fundamental democratic principles. We show that an exogenous shock, like the pandemic, creates incentives for governing elites to deploy self-empowering mechanisms to avoid institutional checks and balances – with lasting consequences for democratic performance. We examine this prospect in Italy and Romania. These cases have a long history of institutional gridlock; such history reinforces incentives to work around traditional institutions in responding to the pandemic. While the two cases vary in terms of the quality and resilience of their democratic institutions, we find that elites displayed a similar propensity to overlook the intricate institutional balances during a moment of crisis. In Italy, the executive strengthened its power relative to the legislature; in Romania, the strengthening is relative to the judiciary. This finding has implications in assessing the risk for falling standards of liberal democracy across the European Union.