Conference Agenda

This study examines whether crisis-induced lesson-drawing processes shaped the European Union’s formulation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the role of policy and political entrepreneurs and the dynamic between inter- and intra- crisis policy learning. The research specifically explores how lessons from a prior similar crisis, the Euro-crisis, influenced the EU’s response to the pandemic. Following the Euro-crisis, the EU’s reliance on mechanisms such as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the implementation of austerity measures triggered significant political and social backlash, especially in debtor countries like Greece and Portugal (Buti, 2020). This experience underscored the need for institutional and policy reform to avoid repeating these missteps.

Initially, the EU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic reflected focusing on modifying existing mechanisms such as the ESM, the Pandemic Crisis Support, the SURE program, and the flexible use of cohesion funds to address immediate needs (Deverell, 2009; Howarth & Quaglia, 2021; Ladi & Wolff, 2021). However, these measures, while necessary, did not signify a shift in the EU’s overall crisis governance approach but instead functioned as a stabilising response, a buffer. The pandemic’s unprecedented nature created a "permissive context," fostering conditions favourable to political entrepreneurs to re- consider and re- introduce more ambitious ideas, including the idea of common debt.

Anchored in policy learning theory and crisis governance, this paper will examine the inter- and intra- crisis periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigating how lessons from the Euro-crisis were learnt by policy entrepreneurs and how the evolving nature of crises, characterised by the slow-burning inter-crisis phase punctuated by the fast-burning intra-crisis, facilitated the reframing of the crisis as a shared European problem, fostering solidarity among Member States (Ladi & Tsarouhas, 2020; Capati, 2024; Capati, 2023; Fabrini & Capati, 2023).

In order to research the core question driving this study: how do policy and political entrepreneurs leverage policy learning within the European Union to induce change, and what role do temporal dynamics in crisis decision-making play in these processes? This study will make use of process-tracing and qualitative document analysis complemented by 10-15 semi-structured interviews with EU policymakers and experts directly involved in the ESM and the RRF’s development.

By coupling insights from policy learning with a focus on the temporal dimensions of crises, this research aims to further the understanding of the mechanisms that lead to significant policy change in times of crisis more broadly as well as what may lead to deeper integration and reform in the context of the EU.

This article examines whether and how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the African Union (AU) mobilized their imagined futures in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Both regional intergovernmental organizations (ROs) aspire to utopian futures that promise socioeconomic advancement and prosperity in the regions, respectively articulated as “ASEAN Community Vision” and “Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.” Given the unprecedented societal disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis, which cast global doubt on optimistic projections of the future, the ROs’ utopian future visions may have come under significant pressure. Against this backdrop, a critical question arises regarding the continued relevance and resonance of the ROs’ imagined future during the crisis. This study finds that both ROs mobilized their imagined futures as sources of orientation to navigate the crisis and further developed them throughout their pandemic response, demonstrating that they remained committed to their imagined futures. Through qualitative document analysis, the empirical investigation identifies a tripartite dynamic in the ROs’ crisis response that collectively fortified their imagined futures: first, defense of the imagined futures by framing the crisis as a disruption to the trajectory toward realization of the imagined futures, rather than to the imagined futures per se; second, validation of core normative principles embedded in the imagined futures, such as community spirit and regional cooperation, as guiding orientations for the crisis response; and finally, empowerment through targeted efforts to address structural gaps in the trajectory toward the imagined futures that were exposed by the crisis. This article contributes to scholarship on regionalism and futures studies by highlighting that imagined futures can serve as critical resources for ROs’ crisis governance.

The Netherlands can be described as technocratic. Trust in expert elites is high and their ability to provide sound advice to the government is undisputed. As such, experts exert a lot of influence over policy decisions. Still, a strong case can also be made for Dutch representative democracy. In line with its strong neo-corporatist tradition and consensus-based governance system, interest groups have an institutionalised voice in political decision-making. In this paper, we investigate this already precarious dichotomy under stress conditions. We look at the government’s decision to close schools during the turbulent first wave of the Covid-19 crisis. After collecting evidence from interviews, the media and official documents, we use process tracing to uncover the causal chain leading to this policy decision. This clarifies the role of interest groups and technical experts in the narrative battle around this policy issue, while revealing new evidence of the broader contest fought between technocracy and representative democracy.