European Political Science versus the Pandemic: Patterns of Professional Adaptation
| Author | Giliberto Capano,Luca Verzichelli,Giulia Vicentini |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211052896 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211052896
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(1) 63 –81
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299211052896
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European Political Science
versus the Pandemic: Patterns
of Professional Adaptation
Giliberto Capano1, Luca Verzichelli2
and Giulia Vicentini2
Abstract
The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak can be considered a potential driver of changes
not only in academic disciplines but also, as most observers underline, in the teaching mission
of higher education. This raises the main question of this article, that is, exactly whether and
how an external shock such as COVID-19 can impact the comprehensive profile of academic
disciplines. By focusing on European political science, the article assesses the differences
among scholars in this community in terms of potential long-term reactions. The study, based
on the outcomes of an original survey conducted among 1400 European professional political
scientists (EPSs) at the end of 2020, aims at detecting the “predisposition to adaptation”
of the community, by examining the attitudes revealed by EPSs during the early phase of
pandemic. In this regard, we focus on the explanations of different aspects of ‘professional
adaptation’, discussing three dimensions that seem to be present in our sample, although with
very different weights: passive, proactive and innovative adaptation.
Keywords
European political scientists, COVID-19, professional adaptation, survey data, factor analysis
Accepted: 24 September 2021
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented challenge for the academic
community worldwide. Academics have been obliged to deal with significant ‘tempo-
rary’ changes in the way they teach, the procedures to manage research projects and the
practices of daily academic life, including in-person departmental meetings, confer-
ences, workshops and international mobility.
1Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
2Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy
Corresponding author:
Giliberto Capano, University of Bologna, Bologna 40126, Italy.
Email: giliberto.capano@unibo.it
1052896PSW0010.1177/14789299211052896Political Studies ReviewCapano et al.
research-article2021
Article
64 Political Studies Review 21(1)
Worldwide, while higher education institutions have effectively reacted by shifting to
online/blended teaching and thus guaranteeing continuity in this fundamental mission
(European Universities Association, 2020; International Association of Universities,
2020), the measurement of the pandemic’s impact on the attitudes of academic communi-
ties is less clear. In fact, most of the current research on the COVID-19’s impact on the
academic profession has focused mainly on career trajectories, the working conditions of
young scholars and growing inequalities among generations and groups of practising
academics. For example, there is clear empirical evidence of a gender effect: female aca-
demics have been affected more negatively than males (Gorska et al., 2021; Minello
et al., 2020; Staniscuaski et al., 2020), especially those with children (Myers et al., 2020).
From a more general perspective, the empirical evidence is somehow contradictory:
according to a general survey (covering 25,000 responses from approximately 40 coun-
tries), the majority of academics have managed to continue all their tasks without signifi-
cant disruption (Frontiers in Public Health, 2020). Conversely, another general survey
showed a difference in terms of loss of research time according to the equipment intensity
of individual academic disciplines (Myers et al., 2020).
Furthermore, when the focus is on single countries, the result is again rather uncertain.
For example, in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the overall impact does not look
negative, and a positive effect in terms of more time reserved for research appears (Raabe
et al., 2020). Adaptation and renewal of communitarian character emerge in Norway,
Finland, Sweden and Australia (Sjølie et al., 2020). In contrast, in the United Kingdom, a
significant disruption in terms of life and professional conditions can be observed
(Watermeyer et al., 2021). Obviously, these differences depend on the type of sample, the
goal of the survey and the content of the related questions.
Until now, insufficient attention has been given to the potential impact of COVID-19
in terms of possible medium- to long-term changes in the dynamics and characteristics of
academic disciplines. In fact, with the only exception of the medical disciplines – whose
way of working was severely impacted by COVID-19 and which have been analysed in
depth – there are very few studies on the potential effects of the pandemic on single dis-
ciplinary fields.1 Moreover, most of the studies have been interested only in short-term
effects, neglecting the significant impact that a critical crisis such as COVID-19 may
have on the constraints and opportunities not only in higher education institutions but also
in single academic disciplines.
Focusing on the reactions of a specific disciplinary community may allow us to
obtain a finer-grained picture of the pandemic’s impact on the academic world and to
understand whether this impact could lead to significant medium- and long-term disci-
plinary changes. The present article tries to fill this gap by focusing on a discipline
(political science) representing the whole area of social sciences and humanities. That
is, a discipline characterised by weak social relevance can be significantly penalised by
post–COVID recovery policies.
We will do this by employing an original dataset from a survey focusing on the
responses of European political scientists (EPSs) during the early phase of the pandemic.
Our main illustrative goal is analysing the attitudes of our respondents in terms of profes-
sional adaptation. However, the survey also allows us to measure the different behav-
iours of scholars and the changing relations between the perceptions of the social role of
the discipline and the prospective long-term visions of EPSs for the post-pandemic con-
text. In particular, we will focus on three different EPSs’ paths of adaptation: passive
adaptation, proactive adaptation and innovative adaptation.
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