Living with COVID-19: Opportunities for the Usual Socio-Political Life in an Unusual Situation

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic stressed national and international systems and relations and demonstrated the vulnerability of modern societies. The governments were forced to implement restrictive measures in order to protect public health. The most challenging aspect was balancing between public health protection and the functioning of the economy. As this wasn’t easy to reach, some of the governments faced challenges in communicating with the society, resulting in protests. Under these brand-new challenges, the protests only made the task of the governments harder and threatened to harm the fragile political stability. Thus, the aim of the current study is to identify the problems related to the communication between the society and the government and to identify the possible solutions for ensuring the dialogue in such situations. The study focuses on EU citizens and their attitudes toward government measures related to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Our materials and methods include review of scientific literature on the topics under considerations. We also performed a secondary processing of quantitative data from Eurobarometer using IBM SPSS v. 26. The results show that the measures limiting civil liberties lead to social tension even if the governments adapt their approach and search for new opportunities. This leads to the conclusion that in order to ensure the normal functioning of the social systems the governments should find ways to include the stakeholders in the decision-making. The latter is possible through digital tools and by developing a system to be implemented in times of crises even if the crisis is not caused by pandemics.