Crises and emergencies can potentially generate massive human, societal and political consequences, affecting the life of citizens and the functioning of democratic institutions. DEMOPE aims to assess the impact of crises on democracy and democratic institutions, investigating how crises affect everyday politics, the decision-making processes and their outputs. In view of that, DEMOPE will investigate whether crises lead to change and, if so, how do they change politics, trying to disentangle short term and long term effects . Adopting a multi-disciplinary, multi-method and multi-actor perspective, DEMOPE will evaluate the impact of crises on: Government, Bureaucracy and Experts; Parliaments, Parties and Leaders; Multilevel Networks, such as international organizations, the European Union (EU) and national/local governments; Media and Society, including social movements, interest groups and citizens . Given that different typologies of emergency can wield different effects on the political system, DEMOPE will compare the main crises that Italy and EU countries faced over the last two decades, spanning from the economic and financial crisis, to the migrant crisis, the climate change issue, the COVID-19 pandemic and wars. Bearing in mind that modern crises are not spatially confined by national borders, DEMOPE will pay attention to the Italian case putting it in a comparative perspective and analyzing the effects of crises also in other selected European countries.