Has the pandemic affected democracy? : A qualitative study on the COVID-19's impact on democracy in the European Union

Abstract: During its years, the European Union (EU) has experienced several different crises that have challenged its association and put democracy at risk. The financial crisis in 2009 and the migration crisis in 2015 are two difficult periods that caused a split between the member states. In 2020, the Union faced another crisis when the world witnessed the birth of the COVID-19 pandemic. To protect public health, states have introduced state of emergency (SoE) that gives the political government more power to make quick decisions and restrict residents' democratic freedoms. Discussions about how the pandemic affects democracy in the EU have been raised. This study aims to examine different views on how EU democracy is affected by the pandemic. The purpose is to identify how five different representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and intuitions reason about the pandemic's effect on EU democracy. In addition, the purpose is to compare differences and similarities between their different points of view. To generate a result, the interviews were analyzed through previous research and a theoretical framework of Utilitarianism and Consequentialism. The theories analyze through a normative ethics perspective that determines what action is morally right based on the consequences of it. The results show that the pandemic has caused an acceleration of anti-democratic development and a higher concentration of power within the governments. The respondents in the study believe that the pandemic has acted as an accelerator of anti-democratic development in countries where this was already going on before the pandemic struck. Moreover, SoE has caused practical changes in democratic processes, such as restricting participation and democratic freedoms, increasing disinformation, and limiting trust-building between countries. The difference identified was that respondents from institutions did not consider that SoE harms EU’s democracy, but instead is morally right to implement. However, respondents from NGOs defined the implementation of SoE as detrimental to democracy in the EU and questioned whether it is morally right in terms of its consequences for democracy.