review of studies on the transformation of electoral institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic

What is it about?

The article provides review of studies on the transformation of electoral institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review covers the academic and expert literature of 2020-2021. The main research centers that study the impact of the pandemic on the electoral process are characterized. The main directions, the most important arguments and results of the discussion on the acceptability of postponing elections during the pandemic are identified. It has been revealed that during 2020, most researchers justified the preference for postponing elections over the alternative of distorting election campaign procedures. An exceptionally high degree of solidarity between researchers was revealed on the issue that decisions on elections during a pandemic should be made on the basis of a broad political consensus. The issues of introducing and distributing new voting procedures during a pandemic were considered. Differences between American and European experts on the issue of the prospects and acceptability of the distribution of alternative voting procedures are identified.

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Why is it important?

During the period under review, there were no stable trends in understanding and interpreting the electoral rule changes that took place. Existing methodological guidelines, in particular, the unpopularity of traditional institutionalism, hinder a comprehensive study of the transformation of electoral institutions in modern science. For the first time in several decades, the study of electoral institutions in English-speaking science stopped the dominance of liberal ideological values.

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