Theorizing Institutional Change and Governance in European Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the decade prior to the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the European Union had already had enough crises to, as the saying goes, last a lifetime. Europe’s fast-burning crises started with the sovereign debt crisis in 2010, continued with the migration crisis that exploded in 2015, and followed with the British vote to exit the EU in 2016. The slow-burning crises also continued, including the on-going security crisis, the simmering climate crisis, and the steady rise of populist anti-system parties which challenged the existence of the euro, the EU, and the tenets of liberal democracy and rule of law in the EU and its member-states. But the COVID-19 health crisis, which immediately morphed into an economic crisis, topped all of these other crises in terms of the associated short-term risks as well as medium and long term ones, the need for quick responses, and the unexpected ways in which this double crisis upended long-standing policies and processes in all domains. Every single policy area already in crisis was affected, and many of those with seemingly settled policies and politics were also disrupted. Moreover, while the responses in some sectors seemed to open new areas of contestation, others seemed to resolve long-standing disputes.