COVID-19 in East-Central Europe: Diverse Policy Responses to the Pandemic

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel addresses the COVID-19 pandemic in East-Central Europe from the perspective of policy responses to the crisis in four countries in the region: Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Panelists analyze the diverse responses to the pandemic these states have adopted and examine whether the responses indicate unity in diversity or clear differentiation among them. Attila ANTAL argues that COVID-19 pandemic offered to Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary the opportunity to capitalize on the crisis and introduce long-lasting exceptional measures, and thus authoritarian populism in Hungary entered a new phase in which the use of emergency power will be crucial. Krzysztof BRZECHCZYN employs the concept of “regulative credit” to examine the way Polish society supported the government by giving it a “regulative credit” during the most difficult periods of COVID-19 crisis and the emergence of social protest when restrictions lasted too long. Vítězslav SOMMER addresses political controversies related to COVID-19 pandemic in Czechia by looking at the longer history of the relationship between policy-making and expertise, and argues that this conflicting interaction played a key role in that country before and after 1989. Dragoş PETRESCU analyzes contradictory responses to COVID-19 pandemic in Romania, from issues of path dependence and legal security, which led to mishandling of the public health crisis in mid-2020 to digital solutions, which enabled a smooth handling of the vaccination campaign in early 2021. Daniel CHIROT, a prominent scholarly figure in the fields of political, social and economic change will be chair and discussant to the panel.

Sub Unit

• Politics/Law

Chair

• Daniel Chirot, U of Washington

Papers

• Emergency Power in Hungary and the COVID-19 Crisis - Attila Antal, Eötvös Loránd U (Hungary)

• Between Safety and Freedom: The Dilemmas of Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland - Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland)

• State, Experts and Legacies of Long Transformation: COVID-19 Controversies in the Czech Republic - Vitezslav Sommer, Charles U in Prague (Czech Republic)

• Path Dependence, Legal (In)Security, Digital Solutions: Contradictory Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis in Romania - Dragos Petrescu, U of Bucharest (Romania)

Discussant

• Daniel Chirot, U of Washington

Session Manager

• Allison Schmidt, U of Pennsylvania