The scientific journal “Public Policy Studies” (http://szpp.sgh.waw.pl) published at the Collegium of Socio-Economics of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, announces the Call for Papers for the Special Issue on social problems related to elections during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Elections in a Democratic Rule of Law State During a Pandemic Sanitary Regime as a Challenge for Public Policy

Deadline for submitting proposals/abstracts of papers: January 6, 2021.
Deadline for submitting manuscripts: July 15, 2021.

The scope of this Call for Papers:
Elections were, are, and will be one of the key elements for the functioning of a democratic state. This does not mean that elections themselves, their environment, and the legal regulations related to them must remain unchanged. However, it is important for these transformations to be adequate to the evolving technological solutions, social conditions, and for that elections to be prepared in a rational, professional, lawful and timely manner so that they can be adapted to the system.
In recent years, the nature of the election administration has been radically reformed in various countries. The possibilities of conducting an election campaign and its financing have been significantly reorganized. Nowadays, we are faced with complex challenges resulting, for example, from the transfer on-line of a large part of the activity related to creating political reality, the choices made by citizens, or searching for information. The changes and progress that we have been dealing with in recent years in this matter are not merely technological; they are civilizational. Those phenomena pose challenges that go far beyond the commonly available heuristics and the cognitive apparatus at our disposal. We face an extreme asymmetry of competencies and access to information between representatives of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and other entities involved in the political choices. As a result, not only voters but also public administration is not prepared for the change that is taking place.
As it turned out, no one was prepared for the events that took place at the beginning of the 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic, which affected in one way or another almost everyone, additionally complicated the situation and acted as a catalyst, accelerating some already ongoing political and social processes. It also left a decisive mark on the election processes that took place at that time or that were to take place, and as a result, were postponed to another date. In those countries where it was decided to hold elections, they were of a different nature than before. Lawmakers in many countries have made, often significant, changes to the electoral law. In some cases, even episodic (one-off) legal regulations have been created, sometimes prepared in disregard of customary good practices in planning public activities related to such a fundamental issue as the administration of the election process, and in a manner that may raise reservations from the perspective of the norms of a democratic rule of law state. The pandemic, in matters related to the elections, forced state authorities to take measures aimed primarily at ensuring the safety of voters, the staff of election commissions and election administration employees. It also contributed to a decisive reorganization of the election campaigns, including its more dynamic and wider transfer to the digital world. All this, combined with the militarization of information, has led to the emergence of serious risks, including for the safety of elections and the quality of political systems in democratic states.
Bearing in mind the above issues, we invite you to submit proposals of texts focused on various aspects of the broadly understood electoral process in terms of public policy, in particular:
• Organization and management of postal elections, also during a pandemic.
• Ensuring a sanitary regime for the work of electoral bodies during a pandemic.
• Securing and transferring voters’ personal data on the basis of which lists of voters are drawn up.
• Managing epidemiological risks in the context of political processes.
• Analysis of problems related to the organization and security of elections.
• Analysis of electoral administration reforms.
• Ways to counteract the militarization of information and social media in the election process.
• The importance of public communication strategies for the electoral process.
• Methods and techniques of conducting an election campaign during a pandemic.
• The importance of the institutions of local government units in the organization and holding of elections.
• The institution of an election officer.
• The use and abuse of social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram) in election campaigns, with emphasis on the time of the pandemic.

Submission Procedure:
The deadline for interested authors to submit paper proposals/abstracts will expire on January 6, 2021, and for the finished manuscripts on July 15, 2021. Proposed topics should be sent to the thematic editors of the issue: Tomasz Gąsior (tomasz.gasior@op.pl) and Jan Misiuna (jan.misiuna@sgh.waw.pl).
Authors should submit manuscripts to the journal “Public Policy Studies” via the Open Journal Systems website: https://econjournals.sgh.waw.pl/KSzPP/about/submissions
Texts should be in Word (.docx) format and consist of up to max 40 000 characters. All texts undergo a review process (double-blind peer-review). Articles are published in Open Access under the CC BY 4.0 licence (authors retain the copyright). Editing and publication of articles in “Public Policy Studies” are free of charge. Fees or Article Processing Charges (APCs) are not requested from the authors at any point of the peer review and publication.

Manuscripts should include the following elements:
• Author(s) contact details (name and surname, institutional affiliation, city, country, e-mail address, and ORCID identifier).
• Title of the paper.
• Abstract: 200-250 words.
• 5-7 keywords.
• JEL Classification Codes: 3-5 codes; codes are available here.
• Main text and subtitles.
• Summary.
• Endnotes and references in the Harvard/APA style.

We encourage authors to use the article template (in Polish or in English).
More information for authors is available on the journal’s website (http://szpp.sgh.waw.pl) from the editors of the Special Issue.