Digitalisation of National Parliaments After the Covid-19 Pandemic: Temporary Adjustment, Incremental Change or Lasting Institutional Transformation?

This article contributes to the literature on parliamentary digitalisation in the context of crisis and post-crisis resilience. While the crisis period has attracted substantial attention, the post-crisis period remains under-studied. This article seeks to address these gaps by studying comparatively how national parliaments in selected EU member states digitalised their law-making and scrutiny procedures before, during and after the crisis. In historical-institutionalist terms, the onset of the pandemic constituted a potential critical juncture capable of producing transformative institutional change. A major crisis may open the door to profound reforms that would not occur under ordinary conditions. On the one hand, the pandemic prevented parliaments from exercising their core functions in line with existing procedures, prompting digital adaptation. On the other hand, legislatures are widely understood to be path-dependent and institutionally resilient. They may therefore resist major reforms even in the face of crisis, or adopt only temporary adjustments. A further strand of literature suggests that parliaments are rather prone to incremental change: instead of replacing existing arrangements, incremental change introduces new arrangements to the pre-existing set of rules. Against that background, this study is guided by the following research questions: which of the three scenarios explains best the digitalisation of national parliamentary law-making and scrutiny across three time points, namely, before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic: (a) temporary adjustment with a reversion to established practice; (b) incremental change; or (c) transformative change? To what extend are parliaments under study convergent or divergent in their development? The analysis covers national parliaments in Austria, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. Empirically, the study combines a comparative content analysis of parliamentary rules of procedure across the three time-points with semi-structured interview data from parliamentary clerks working in scientific or digitalisation units. The empirical findings reveal divergent developmental trajectories. Most parliaments followed patterns of temporary adjustment or incremental change, while only one displayed features of lasting transformation. Against the common expectation, the Covid-19 pandemic has not triggered a widespread transformative change of practices.