New modes of acculturation and democratic institutional change during COVID-19 crisis

The Covid-19 crisis has brought swift and tremendous challenges and changes, and this experience is making us revisit the patterns of the contemporary political culture of citizens and explore the capability of basic democratic institutions to adapt, and to prove sustainable in the time of pandemic turmoil. The Covid-19 crisis management triggered new modes of social acculturation and the “health Enlightenment” of citizens. In parallel, new modes of institutional change and adaptation of democracy are invented. The analysis describes what new modes of acculturation can be observed among citizens, and finds out that parliaments are still preserving institutional capacities of performing their constitutional role in the decision-making process. Even with the lower turnout at the elections, that is held during the pandemic, elections are remaining the main realm and tool of citizens' participation in democracy