We would like to strongly encourage you to submit your paper for the international workshop „Parliaments in Pandemics“ that will be held in hybrid form (in-person – Prague, Academic Conference Centre, and on zoom) between 26-27 May 2022.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, democracy worldwide continued to deteriorate. As established and new democracies faced unprecedented challenges to public health and the economy, their democratic quality declined. While established democracies could largely prevent pandemic erosion of democratic quality, democracies in transitions could not. Pandemic is an opportunity for executive aggrandizement –strengthening governments, weakening parliaments, and testing the judiciary.

The pandemic challenges legislatures in multiple ways: testing institutional features and exacerbating pre-existing political tensions, the interaction between legislative and the executive branch - augmenting executive aggrandizement and pre-existing illiberal tendencies, redefines the relationship between legislatures and experts, functioning of the parliaments – increasing demands for modernization and digitalization of parliamentary procedures.

In particular, the pandemic highlighted the tensions between the two competing logics:  representation (emphasizing voice and individual MPs) and governance (emphasizing decision-making and accountability). While in non-pandemic times, these logics coexist, the pandemic exacerbated these tensions due to the scope and urgency of this crisis. During the crisis, governance logic prevails - focusing on decision-making and accountability to a lesser degree.

Keynote speaker Sven T. Siefken will present first findings of the second wave of a global expert survey ‘Parliaments in Pandemics’.  Conducted in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the survey focused on how the pandemic changed the legislatures' roles and, in particular, electoral, legislative, oversight, communication- and-representation functions.

We are seeking additional papers on the following topics:

We welcome papers on the following topics:

- Pandemics and division of power
- Pandemics and parliament
- Pandemics and hybrid regimes

The workshop is held in hybrid form (in person Prague and per zoom), in English; registration is required, but free. The deadline for abstracts of 200-300 words is 21 April 2022. Prospective paper givers will be notified by 30 April 2022.

The workshop is organized by Dr. Zdenka Mansfeldová and Dr. Petra Guasti.

Direct abstracts to zdenka.mansfeldova@soc.cas.cz and petraguasti@googlemail.com

The event is supported by the Strategy AV21 of the Czech Academy of Sciences, research program No. 15 - Global Conflicts and Local Interactions: Cultural and Social Challenges, and organized in cooperation with IPSA RC08 Legislative Specialist and IPS FSV UK.