Political decision-making is complex even under normal conditions. Periods of crisis add further challenges by increasing time pressure, uncertainty, and demands for rapid political action. In contemporary democracies, crisis situations are no longer rare exceptions but increasingly recurrent contexts of governance.
This seminar examines how crisis reshapes core political processes in democratic systems. Rather than focusing on crisis management as a technical problem, the course approaches crisis as a political condition that modifies how governments govern, parliaments legislate, citizens vote, and inequalities are produced or mitigated. The seminar introduces students to central concepts and theoretical approaches from comparative politics and applies them to empirical cases of political decision-making under crisis.
The course is structured around five thematic blocks:
1. Conceptualizing crisis
2. Governing during crisis
3. Legislating during crisis
4. Voting and public opinion in crisis
5. The relationship between crisis and political inequality
Throughout the seminar, crisis is treated as a stress test for democratic institutions and actors, allowing students to compare political processes in “normal times” with those under pressure.
- Dozent/in: Meryem Kocabas
- Dozent/in: Corinna Kröber
- Dozent/in: Lena Stephan