Virtual icon Crises and Policy Process Research

Abstract

Speaker: Laura Mastroianni, University of Bologna In public policy literature and, more specifically, policy process research, crises are considered turning points that move policy subsystems from stability to change and learning. This assumption is also at the basis of many European Union integration theories, with the EU founding fathers’ statement that the EU will be forged in crisis. In the last fifteen years or so, crises are also becoming the new stability in the EU, with shocks succeeding one another (e.g.,the Eurocrisis, refugee crisis, and Covid-19, among others). However, this connection between crises, policy processes and EU policymaking is still underexplored. By relying on theories of the policy process and especially on their application to the EU context, crisis management literature as well as the methodological tools of network analysis, the contributions presented aim at filling this gap.