Representative Democracy in Crisis Mode: Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Covid-19 Pandemic

2026-07-22

The goal of this project is to examine the functioning of representative democracy in crisis mode. Although the current COVID-19 pandemic and the sovereign debt crisis have been extensively analysed in numerous case studies, there is a gap in the literature regarding the functioning of representative democracy in extraordinary situations. This project addresses that gap by focusing on representative democracy (parliaments) at the domestic and supranational level. The project targets the following research questions: To what extent have the sovereign debt and the COVID-19 crisis affected representative democracy at the national and supranational level? Have these crises triggered decline, empowerment or maybe no change at all? Looking at formal and informal legislative, scrutiny and representative powers of parliaments, do we observe a similar or a different trend across both crises? Are the changes observed of a temporary or a permanent nature, namely, affecting the DNA of representative democracy in Europe? The thematic focus of the project is divided into two areas: institutional impact (impact of the crisis on institutional competences, practices and interinstitutional relations) and oversight of European economic governance (European Semester, rule of law mechanism). All the activities of this project are organised in three work-packages: WP-1 Teaching (modules delivered by the Chairholder and the team), WP-2 Europe Today (series of public events) and WP-3 Research Activity (academic research and workshops). There are three benefiting persons: the chairholder and two senior researchers. The expected result is an asymmetric impact of crises on representative democracy at the national and supranational level. The project produces the following outputs: new modules and international teaching staff (WP-1), public meetings promoting unbiased, quality debate on EU topics (WP-2) and academic cooperation generating cutting-edge research and publications (WP-3).

Poland

2025-10-01