Insightful exploration into the impact of the pandemic on parliamentary systems at the academic workshop, “Parliaments in the Pandemic.” Hosted by the Institute of Sociology, CAS in Prague, this event aimed to foster discussions, share research findings, and analyze the evolving role of parliaments during these unprecedented times.
The emergence and spread of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy, as in the rest of the world, required parliaments to balance two priorities: ensuring the continuity of parliamentary work and protecting the health of their members and staff. If, in some …
Want to know more about the impact of #COVID19 pandemic on governments and parliaments in Italy and abroad?
Have a look at this #IdPS Interdisciplinary Political Studies Special Issue edited by Andrea Pedrazzani & myself and sponsored by the #SISP Stading Group “Government Parliament Representation”
The Parliaments in the Pandemic (PiP) collaboration held their 3rd academic workshop on 14-15 November 2022 to discuss the first analyses of their international expert panel survey on how parliaments around the globe were affected by the Covid pandemic.
On July 20th 2022, I participated in the second workshop of the research network “Parliaments in the pandemic” (PiP). PiP is an international collaboration gathering experts on parliaments organised under the aegis of the Research Committee of Legislative Specialists (RCLS) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
This one-day workshop organised by the standing group of the Italian Political Science Association “Government, parliament and political representation” took place at Roma-Tre university. It saw the participation of scholars and practitioners interested in the analysis of the performance of the Italian parliament during the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic challenged parliamentary decision-making, which is normally based on time-consuming deliberation and scrutiny. We ask how national parliaments met this challenge during the first wave in the spring 2020, and we argue that institutional powers of the executive designed to handle crises just like a pandemic, paradoxically, increase challenges to democratic decision-making because the parliament misses opportunities to negotiate institutional adjustments accommodating pressure of government takeover. We evaluate this argument based on a comparative study of parliamentary activity in Italy and Denmark during the first wave of COVID-19 and find that both parliaments came under pressure with regard to law-making and control, but only the Danish parliament was able to install effective mechanisms to regain lost powers. It is too early to conclude on parliamentary consequences of COVID-19, but our study suggests that parliamentary reforms in response to the COVID-19 democratic challenges will mainly manifest in political systems without strong institutions to handle states of emergency.