Parliamentary adjustment during a crisis: Interplay of digitalization and domestic context factors

Abstract

The article studies how national parliaments in EU member states adjusted to the Covid-19 pandemic by posing the following questions: to what extent has the application of innovative digital measures facilitated the resilience of parliamentary democracy during the Covid-19 pandemic? What was the interplay between digital measures and other explanatory factors, such respect for the rule of law (RoL) at the domestic level and presence/absence of fast-track measures? Drawing on qualitative content analysis, the article demonstrates that the three explanatory factors reinforce each other. If respect for the RoL is deficient and fast-track measures are allowed, digitalization is not capable of upholding parliamentary powers in emergency situations. At the same time, parliamentary resilience is also possible without digitalization. The condition is that the domestic context guarantees both the respect for the RoL and the absence of fast-track measures.