Changing Interactions between Publics and Policies in Times of Crisis

Abstract

This panel deals with relational mechanisms at the meso-level beyond the consideration of policy change at the macro- level and variations of political behaviour in time of crisis. The current crisis is often discussed in terms of its bad impact on a number of 'deviant' forms of political behaviour, in particular, electoral abstention, political aphasia, or alternatively, affiliation to left/right extreme movements/parties (and the recourse to extreme forms of political mobilisation). The increasing call for a 'normalised' political inclusion is also bringing about many calls for reforms in terms of labour market, social policy, access to citizenship, as well as specific policies targeting the most vulnerable groups. Yet, relational dynamics stand out as a crucial filter between channels for political access, flow of resources, and identities on the one hand, and both the micro- (individuals) and the meso- (organisations) levels of political participation on the other hand. Attention on these relational dynamics allows for assessing the roles and positions of a large number of different actors –—including policy-makers, political elites, movements of citizens, vulnerable groups, organisations mobilising on their behalf, as well as various civil society stakeholders. Going beyond an approach looks especially at associational membership as an ‘individual’ attribute that impacts upon the political participation of ‘individuals’, this panel thus looks at relational dynamics across the public domain and the policy domain, considering different types of actors, and possibly, different policy and issue fields. The relationship between the domain of policy-making and the public domain of political intervention considers that these two domains are independent from each other, without the assumption that one affects necessarily the other. Accordingly, the panel can assess the extent to which variations of political participation in times of crisis can be linked to specific relational mechanisms, which filter the impact of more ‘distant’ explanans.