Civic Insights
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Intermittent Governance: About the Governance Switch in Moments of Crisis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Doina Gavrilov
The emergence of the EU has raised the question whether other types of governance exist except for the national one. This question has led to the emergence of the integration theories and the governance theories that discuss different types of governance in the EU context. However, the actions of the national states that caused Brexit or the changes in the judiciary systems of Poland and Hungary that are not in line with the EU principles and values made us wonder whether top-down governance really exists. Starting from the integration theories, we initiate an analysis of the dominant type of governance in the EU with respect to the multi-level governance theory. For this we chose to study the case of Poland and Hungary in order to analyze their actions in the rule of law and human rights and the power of EU pressures on these states' internal decision-making process. For that we analyze the infringement cases initiated by the European Commission against Poland and Hungary in the field of rule of law and human rights between 2019 and 2021, their evolution, the EU's ability to solve different problems in the Covid 19 crisis and the penalties the EU applied in cases of non-compliance. This analysis made us to come up with the term intermittent governance, which explains the alternation of national governance with the supranational governance in order to solve problems and fulfill social needs.
“It’s Like a Weird Form of Risk Management”: The US “Racial Middle” and Civic Behavior View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Evelyn Rodriguez
In 2020, one-in-ten eligible US voters is between the ages 18 and 23, and 18% of eligible American voters are non-Black minorities—nearly double that demographic’s share of voters in 2000. Whether one seeks to comprehend if most of this population will remain a “sleeping giant that will never wake,” or concurs with proclamations that those who constitute what sociologist Eileen O’Brien has helped dub “the racial middle” (2008) will “determine” the United States’ next leaders, one must agree that key to understanding the potential and power of the racial middle is understanding its young adults, and what informs their attitudes and behaviors regarding civic and/ or political engagement. This paper illuminates this by sharing preliminary findings about how American young adults who self-identify as Asian, Hispanic or Latinx, Native, Pacific Islander, and/ or mixed perceive the US racial order and themselves in it, the social problems they feel most affected by, how parents and/ or communities shape their sense of the risks and responsibilities of engaging in outside activities “not just for myself”, and possible implications of the rise of the US racial middle for greater US society. These findings are part of a qualitative study including interviews with 50 young adults in the US Midwest, Northeast, Pacific, South, and West Coast.
