Summer Program

Summer Program "Parliamentary Democracy in Europe"

13th Edition

“Next Generation EU: implementation and extension”

15-19 July 2024

Luiss School of Government, Rome

Course to be held on campus

This summer program applies research-based knowledge and professional expertise to the study of the parliamentary reaction to past and ongoing crises entailing particularly significant democratic challenges at domestic and international level. Emergency governance and crisis management have somewhat become the “new normal” given the sequence and intertwinement of crises of different nature (financial crisis and energy crisis, environmental crisis, rule of law crisis, the pandemic crisis (etc.). The shift to a constant emergency mode of action, on the one hand, triggers significant problems of democratic responsiveness and accountability; on the other, it puts into question the effectiveness and even the desirability of the parliamentary action in various policy fields. In addition to this, the course also intends to investigate the theory and practice of crisis governance and its impact on representative democracy and on constitutional democracies at large.

The program aims to explore the tension between democratic principles and the suitability and efficiency of the public action, given the difficulty shown by representative institutions in dealing with crises. Various institutions, with their specific configurations and sets of functions, are expected to contribute and coordinate to tackle crises. However, the executive dominance, internal and external shocks and the “politics of immediacy” make it difficult for Parliaments to put in place effective accountability procedures in such a context.

This programme has been co-financed by the European Commission through EACEA (the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency), as a Jean Monnet Module (2016-2019) on Parliamentary Accountability and Technical Expertise: Budgetary Powers, Information and Communication Technologies and Elections (PATEU) and as a Jean Monnet Module (2012-2015) on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe (PADE).

This intensive summer course is organized in cooperation with:

Participants who are or have been affiliated to Luiss Guido Carli University or one of the partners will receive a discount of 10% on the fees.