Table Of ContentPANDEMOCRACY IN EUROPE
This open access book explains why a democratic reckoning will start when
European societies win the fight against COVID-19.
Have democracies successfully mastered the challenges of the pandemic? How
has the coronavirus impacted democratic principles, processes and values? At
the heels of the worst public health crisis in living memory, this book shines a
light on the sidelining of parliaments, the ruling by governmental decrees and the
disenfranchisement of the people in the name of fighting COVID-19.
Pandemocracy in Europe situates the dramatic impact of COVID-19, and the
fight against the virus, on Europe’s democracies. Throughout its 17 contributions
the book sets the theoretical stage and answers the democratic questions engaged
by health emergencies. Seven national case studies – UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden,
Hungary, Switzerland and France – show, each time with a pronounced focus on
a particular element of democracy, how different states reacted to the pandemic.
Bridging disciplines and uniting a stellar cast of scholars on democracy, rule
of law and constitutionalism, the book provides contours and nuances to a year of
debates in political science, international relations and law on the impact of the
virus on democracies.
The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com.
ii
Pandemocracy in Europe
Power, Parliaments and People
in Times of COVID-19
Edited by
Matthias C Kettemann
and
Konrad Lachmayer
HART PUBLISHING
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Names: Kettemann, Matthias C, editor. | Lachmayer, Konrad, editor.
Title: Pandemocracy in Europe : power, parliaments and people in times of COVID-19 / edited by
Matthias C Kettemann and Konrad Lachmayer.
Description: Oxford ; New York : Hart, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2021042168 (print) | LCCN 2021042169 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509946365 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781509946402 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509946389 (pdf) | ISBN 9781509946372 (Epub)
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2020—-Political aspects—Europe.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Contributors ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii
Introduction and Acknowledgements ���������������������������������������������������������������������������1
Matthias C Kettemann and Konrad Lachmayer
PART I
THE THEORY – POWER, PEOPLE AND THE CRISIS
1. Lawless Extravagance: The Primacy Claim of Politics and the State
of Exception in Times of COVID-19 ���������������������������������������������������������������������9
Paul Gragl
2. Abuse of Power and Self-entrenchment as a State Response to the
COVID-19 Outbreak: The Role of Parliaments, Courts and the People ������������33
Antonios Kouroutakis
3. Democracy, Death and Dying: The Potential and Limits of Legal
Rationalisation �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������47
Konrad Lachmayer
PART II
THE PRACTICE – DEMOCRACIES AND THE PANDEMIC
4. Virus Governance in the United Kingdom ����������������������������������������������������������71
Robert Thomas
5. Germany – Federalism in Action ������������������������������������������������������������������������91
Pierre Thielbörger
6. The Marginalisation of Parliament in Facing the Coronavirus
Emergency: What about Democracy in Italy? ��������������������������������������������������117
Arianna Vedaschi
7. Swedish Constitutional Response to the Coronavirus Crisis
The Odd One Out? ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������135
Julia Dahlqvist and Jane Reichel
vi Table of Contents
8. Using Emergency Powers in Hungary: Against the Pandemic
and/or Democracy? ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������155
Zoltán Szente and Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz
9. Switzerland: The (Missing) Role of Parliament in Times of Crisis �������������������179
Odile Ammann and Felix Uhlmann
10. The Hyper-Executive State of Emergency in France �����������������������������������������201
Sylvia Brunet
PART III
BEYOND STATES: DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
IN TIMES OF COVID-19
11. Pandemics, Expertise and Deliberation at the International Level �����������������227
Pedro A Villarreal
12. EU Response to Fighting the Coronavirus – Coordination, Support,
Action – Heeding its Citizens’ Calls? �����������������������������������������������������������������243
Anja Naumann
13. Pandemics and Platforms: Private Governance of (Dis)Information
in Crisis Situations ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������263
Matthias C Kettemann and Marie-Therese Sekwenz
14. Digital Human Rights Proportionality During Global Crisis ��������������������������283
Mart Susi
PART IV
CONCLUSIONS: PANDEMICS, POPULISM AND POWER
15. The Pandemic and Illiberal Constitutional Theories ����������������������������������������299
Gábor Halmai
16. Populism versus Democracy during a Pandemic: Some Preliminary
Considerations ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������315
Jan-Werner Müller
17. Conclusions: Pandemocracy – Governing for the People,
without the People? ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������329
Konrad Lachmayer and Matthias C Kettemann
Index ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������347
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Odile Ammann is Postdoctoral researcher in Public Law at the University of
Zurich (Switzerland).
Sylvia Brunet is Associate Professor (Maître de conférences) in Public Law at the
University of Rouen Normandie (France).
Julia Dahlqvist is a PhD student in Public Law at the Faculty of Law, Stockholm
University (Sweden).
Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz is director and senior research fellow of the Institute for
Legal Studies, Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
and associate professor in constitutional law at the ELTE Law School (Hungary).
Paul Gragl is Professor of European Law at the University of Graz (Austria).
Gábor Halmai is Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law and
Director of Graduate Studies at the Law Department of the European University
Institute in Florence (Italy).
Matthias C Kettemann is Professor of Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of
Law at the Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck
(Austria) and research program head at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research |
Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). He is co-editor of this book.
Antonios Kouroutakis is Assistant Professor at IE University in Madrid and
teaches Constitutional Law and the Regulation of New Technologies and Startups
(Spain).
Konrad Lachmayer is Professor of Public Law, European Law and Foundations of
Law and Vice-Dean of Research at Sigmund Freud University, Faculty of Law in
Vienna (Austria). He is co-editor of this book.
Jan-Werner Müller is Professor at the Department of Politics, Princeton University
(United States).
Anja Naumann has written her PhD on European health law. She is a Researcher
and Graduate Teaching Associate at Queen Mary, University of London (United
Kingdom).
Jane Reichel is Professor in Administrative Law at Stockholm University and vice
head of the Department of Law (Sweden).
viii List of Contributors
Marie-Therese Sekwenz is a researcher working on law, regulation and govern-
ance of artificial intelligence at the Sustainable Computing Lab at the Vienna
University of Economics and Business (Austria).
Mart Susi is Professor of Human Rights Law at Tallinn University and head of its
law school (Estonia).
Zoltán Szente is Professor of Public Law at the University of Public Service,
Budapest and holds a Research Chair at the Institute for Legal Studies, Center for
Social Sciences (Hungary).
Pierre Thielbörger holds a Chair of Public Law and International Law at Ruhr-
University Bochum, and is acting Director of the Institute for Peace Research and
Humanitarian Law (Germany).
Robert Thomas is Professor of Public Law at the University of Manchester (United
Kingdom) and a visiting fellow at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium).
Felix Uhlmann holds a Chair for Constitutional and Administrative Law as well as
Legislative Studies at the University of Zurich (Switzerland).
Arianna Vedaschi is Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at Bocconi
University, Milan (Italy).
Pedro Villarreal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute
for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, where he
co-manages the project ‘International Health Governance’ (Germany).
Introduction and Acknowledgements
MATTHIAS C KETTEMANN AND KONRAD LACHMAYER
The COVID-19 disease occurred suddenly, spread fast and hit hard. After East-Asia,
Europe was a region struck early by the pandemic and European governments
were woefully unprepared. The virus challenged healthcare systems and impacted
every fibre of European lives. With one million European dead at the time this
manuscript was finalised (in May 2021, according to numbers from Johns Hopkins
University), the effect of COVID-19 will be felt for years to come. Grandparents
who died too early, parents to whom children could not say goodbye, middle-
aged persons unable to climb steps due to Long-COVID. We are not doctors.
We cannot help fight COVID-19 directly. But as international and constitutional
law experts, we can diagnose another ill that COVID-19 has brought to Europe’s
vibrant democracies, having emerged surprisingly strong from the financial and
the migration crisis. The impact of governmental responses to COVID-19 rever-
berated in their societies. COVID-19, as our book shows, challenged Europe and
European democracies in more than one way: Europe needs to develop adequate
and effective responses, but also to uphold its democratic values.
Together with an experienced team of authors from across Europe we ask
whether democracy has to be conceptually reimagined as a pandemocracy, with
other priorities, players and normative goals. Has a new viral-authoritarian age
dawned (or were existing illiberal tendencies enhanced), demonstrably, like in
Hungary, or more subtly, like in Germany, where the Bundestag quickly and contro-
versially passed legislation? Did the European multi-level governance sufficiently
support the Member States in the health crisis? What has been the role that inter-
net platforms have taken on? Will democracies also suffer from Long-COVID?
This book focuses on the implications of the fight against COVID-19 for
European democracies in times of the pandemic with contributions linking
debates in political science, international relations and law. This book includes
17 chapters across four parts, that analyse the democratic implications of the
specific challenges of a health-related state of emergency. Part I begins by focusing
on theoretical questions concerning the three main aspects engaged by emergen-
cies: politics, power relations and the people. Part II continues with seven case
studies that, each with a pronounced focus on a particular element of d emocracy,
show how different states reacted to COVID-19. Part III looks beyond the states,
and analyses the international and European impacts as well as the influence of
