Synchronised Politics: Multiple Times and Political Power

Project Information

SYNCPOL

Grant agreement ID: 101054122

DOI

10.3030/101054122

EC signature date 16 June 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 495 475,00

EU contribution

€ 2 495 475,00

Coordinated by

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SYNCPOL (Synchronised Politics: Multiple Times and Political Power)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Democratic policymakers in Europe’s multi-level system grapple with multiple times. Governments, parliaments, and administrative agencies follow distinct time rules and preferences that structure the timing, speed, sequences, frequencies, duration, and time horizons of their actions. In multi-level democratic settings like the EU, time clashes pose a constant threat. Where cooperation across levels and institutions is essential, time clashes can provoke gridlock. SYNCPOL examines synchronisation arrangements designed to prevent time clashes by structuring temporal dimensions in policy-making processes and focuses on power shifts in multi-level systems when synchronisation arrangements come under pressure.

Synchronisation is a critical but understudied dimension of politics. It is defined as the deliberate temporal ordering of inputs into policy processes by means of purposive institutional-organizational arrangements that vary in their actors, extension, distinctness, instrumentation, authority, and compliance. Over the past decade, political demands for “faster action,” “more time,” and “extended time horizons” have pulled synchronisation arrangements in opposite directions. “Faster action” is tied to crises. Demands for “more time” arise under uncertainty requiring further deliberation or better information. “Extended time horizons” emerge when short-term demands conflict with long-term goals. Considering mounting contestation around multiple times, SYNCPOL asks: (1) What happens when political demands challenge synchronisation arrangements? (2) How does reshaping these arrangements alter the vertical and horizontal distribution of power in Europe’s multi-level system?

Conceptually, SYNCPOL defines synchronisation as a key institutional and organisational feature of policy domains. Theoretically, it formulates hypotheses on how synchronisation affects power shifts both vertically (EU, national, subnational) and horizontally (governments, parliaments, agencies).
Empirically, SYNCPOL examines synchronisation arrangements in two policy domains: migration-asylum and public health. Both domains have experienced intense pressures relating to the temporal structuration of policymaking. The main research objectives are implemented through three work packages: WP1 develops core concepts and theoretical hypotheses; WP2 examines how synchronisation arrangements evolve under temporal pressure; WP3 explores the causal links between evolving arrangements and political power.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first reporting period, the SYNCPOL project made major progress towards its key objectives. It developed conceptual frameworks for 'time pressure' and 'synchronisation', enabling systematic measurement and application. A key methodological innovation was the classification of time pressure invocations in European Commission political speeches from 1990 to 2024. This analysis identified four categories: explicit and implicit high time pressure, explicit and implicit low time pressure. The results revealed that European institutions responded to problem pressure and public opinion but also communicated a balance between urgency and deliberation, particularly during European migration crises.

SYNCPOL advanced the understanding of synchronisation in multi-level governance. It developed a six-dimensional model analysing actors, extension, distinctness, instrumentation, authority, and compliance. Applied to EU policymaking - particularly the New Pact on Migration and Asylum - this framework revealed how synchronisation comprises complex multi-layered agreements. It showed how key actors, such as Council Presidencies, made use of their powers over the temporality of the policy process to ensure the continuity of, and commitment to, agreements made during negotiations. The concept has also been applied to understand the architecture of crisis responses, both in health and migration. Specifically, team members have detailed the synchronisation arrangements envisioned in legislative acts which put in place crisis responses in the two policy fields. In November 2024, SYNCPOL hosted an external review, with expert feedback on the evolving concept.

SYNCPOL promoted interdisciplinary collaboration and data sharing. It contributed to teaching, applied computational social science methods, and curated datasets including: a 22,657-speech European Commission migration corpus; machine-translation of more than 4 million European Parliamentary speeches (in collaboration); a dataset on all European Council and Summit conclusions dating from 1968 to the present (in collaboration); and a dataset on more than 350 external migration agreements. These resources support future research on synchronisation and political time pressure.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SYNCPOL conducted the first systematic longitudinal analysis of synchronisation in a complex EU policy package. Drawing on an original six-dimensional conceptualisation of synchronisation, the project traced how actors across EU institutions structured temporal aspects of policymaking in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. This work uncovered how synchronisation arrangements — such as rotating Council Presidencies’ control over timing — shaped negotiation continuity and reinforced commitment to agreements. It offers a novel perspective on how temporal control redistributes power in EU governance.

A second major breakthrough is the empirical measurement of time pressure in political communication. SYNCPOL developed a transformer-based model trained on annotated European Commission speeches on migration (1990–2024), distinguishing between implicit and explicit invocations of urgency. This model enabled large-scale classification of rhetorical time pressure patterns, revealing how policymakers strategically invoke urgency or deliberation to shape policy trajectories. A major contribution of this line of research is the creation of a large-scale dataset covering European Commission speeches on migration policy from 1990 to 2024. This dataset comprises 22,657 speeches and 1.7 million sentences, which were meticulously annotated to identify rhetorical patterns related to time pressure. These annotations formed the foundation for training machine learning models capable of predicting the invocation of time pressure across political texts with high accuracy.

Furthermore, this methodological approach offers broader applicability beyond migration policy. The transformer-based classification model can be extended to analyse time pressure in other policy areas, such as public health. By refining this computational tool and integrating it with political science theories of responsiveness, SYNCPOL sets a new standard for the empirical study of political time.

The SYNCPOL team is already working on expanding the dataset to include additional EU institutions, including the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, and national parliaments to develop a comprehensive analysis of time pressure invocations across multi-level governance structures. In addition, further refinement of the machine learning model will enhance its predictive capabilities, ensuring its continued relevance for political communication research.