Democracy Bulletin, March 2022

Democracy Bulletin, March 2022

DEMOCRACY BULLETIN

News from the Democracy Institute

The fourth issue of the Democracy Bulletin, the quarterly newsletter of the CEU Democracy Institute, focuses on our most important achievements and publications in the previous months. If you don’t want to miss any of our news items, events, articles, podcasts or videos, then please follow us on

,

, and

as well.

HIGHLIGHTS

Renata Uitz Appointed as Co-Director of DI

We are pleased to announce that Professor Renata Uitz took up the position of Co-Director of the CEU Democracy Institute from 1 February 2022, joining Co-Director Professor Laszlo Bruszt. "I am honored to join Laszlo at the helm of CEU Democracy Institute. His and Eva’s leadership has built solid foundations for a world-class intellectual hub. I am excited about furthering DI's interdisciplinary research agenda and fostering a global network with a view to halting democratic backsliding and the normalization of illiberal constitutionalism that it brings," she said. Professor Eva Fodor continues as Pro-Rector for Foresight and Analysis at CEU. Read more here.

EP Vice President Barley and MEP Piri Visited CEU Democracy Institute

Katarina Barley, Vice President of the European Parliament and MEP Kati Piri visited the CEU Democracy Institute Friday evening. They met with Eva Fodor, CEU’s Pro-Rector for Foresight and Analysis; our Co-Directors, Laszlo Bruszt and Renata Uitz, and Dimitry Kochenov, lead researcher of our Rule of Law Workgroup. See more photos about the visit here.

Information and Disinformation in the War in Ukraine

“Although I have always spoken against banning any media outlets in the world, I think the measure to ban propaganda outlets from Russia in this crisis is justifiable," our Senior Program Manager Marius Dragomir said in a video in which he discusses media information and disinformation amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Watch the video

Laurent Pech and Petra Bard Co-author EP Study

The European Commission “should be mindful of deliberate attempts to deceive” its Annual Rule of Law Report by those “engaged in the systemic dismantlement of checks and balances and their proxies,” our Senior Research Fellow Laurent Pech and Research Affiliate Petra Bard write in their study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Read the details here.

Book Launch: Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism

The Routledge Handbook of IIliberalism is the first authoritative reference work dedicated to illiberalism as a complex social, political, cultural, legal, and mental phenomenon. This panel discussion, co-convened by the CEU Democracy Institute and the CEU Department of Legal Studies, situated the volume and its intellectual project in the context of attacks on political liberalism – historic and contemporary.

Watch the discussion

The Future of Rule of Law Constitutionalism in Hungary

In the light of complex multi-level criticism of the state of the Rule of Law in Hungary and the role it plays in the European Union, the future of Rule of Law constitutionalism has been in the spotlight and subject to intense public debate among politicians, academics and the broader public. The event, co-organized with our Review of Democracy, aimed to make a significant contribution to the on-going conversation by offering a platform to several leading personalities at the heart of the rule of law engagements to exchange views on the future of constitutionalism in Hungary. The discussion received significant media coverage in Hungary.

Watch the discussion

New Project: Knowledge Transfer in Global Gender Programs

Little is known about how knowledge is generated and transferred through global programs and across socio-cultural diverse countries to address culturally rooted practices like child marriage, female genital mutilation, and gender-biased sex selection. Our new project aims to better understand knowledge transfer and policy production in the Global Programs to End Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, Gender-biased Sex Selection, and Child Marriage. Read more about it here.

Bibo Free University Offers New Courses 

The Istvan Bibo Free University brings together Hungarians of differing viewpoints and different generations to discuss the social, economic and political problems of Hungary and the European Union in an atmosphere of mutual respect. In the spring semester it offers six courses about various topics. Browse them (in Hungarian) here.

OPPORTUNITIES

Postdoctoral Fellow

Our

 

 

invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow position in a new research project. Learn more about it here.

Assistant Editors

Our journal, the Review of Democracy is looking for new assistant editors. Read more about the details here.

RESEARCH

DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY

International Collaboration

The Workgroup collaborated with the Orient Institute Beirut in the organization of the Institute’s closing conference “Relations in the Ideoscape: Middle Eastern Students in the Eastern Bloc (1950’s to 1991)”. The conference took place between 24-26 February.

History as Democracy?

The project welcomed Stefan Berger with the talk “Memory Cultures of Social Democracy and Trade Unionism.” Another open event with more than 60 visitors was the discussion with Dubravka Stojanović: “Historian as an Enemy - History between Professionalism and Patriotism.”

DE-/RE-DEMOCRATIZATION

Jennifer McCoy and Levente Littvay on Citizen Support for Democratic Erosion

“Individual support for norm-eroding policies increases when their own party is in power,” our Research Affiliates

and

, and

(CEU

) write in their

in

. Read the details

.

Erin Jenne on Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19

“We can learn something about the role of nationalism in the management of public health crises by looking at the variable state responses to the arrival of the virus within their borders,” our Research Affiliate

writes in her

in

(Cambridge University Press). Read the details

.

ENVIRONMENT AND DEMOCRACY

Presentation at United Nations Environment Assembly

The Assembly held a Special Session devoted to the commemoration of the

, where

, lead researcher of our

presented the “The UNEP We Want” report. Learn more about the details and watch his presentation

INEQUALITIES

Illiberalism, Polarization, Social Resilience, and Resistance

Our Research Fellow

and

, researcher of our Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism and Polarization (BRaVE) project edited a

of

Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics

, which includes

 by them and

our Research Fellow

.

Research Proposal Selected for Funding 

The comparative research proposal

Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces Across Europe

has been selected for funding within the European Commission Horizon grant competition. Mieke Verloo (Radboud University, Nijmegen) will serve as consortium coordinator and

will lead our team.

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

First Media Influence Matrix Report from South America

The flagship project of our Center for Media, Data and Society, the

, has now expanded to Latin America with the publication of the first chapter of the MIM: Argentina report. It is also the Center’s first Spanish-language report. Download it

.

Presentation at Arctic University of Norway

Senior Program Officer

and researcher

presented

, written for the European Parliament’s INGE committee on disinformation and minorities, at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) at a conference that launched a project entitled

. Read more

.

RULE OF LAW

Presentations in Cambridge and Oxford

Professor

concluded a mini-tour of the leading UK institutions, presenting at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The research presented included a

forthcoming in a Cambridge University Press collection co-authored with

.

Curing the Symptoms but Not the Disease

Dimitry Kochenov and David de Groot from the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) co-authored a post on Verfassungsblog on the evolving nature of the rules of EU law surrounding citizenship. Read the full post

.

PODCASTS

Disentangling Primacy and the Rule of Law Crisis

Teodora Miljojkovic interviews Ana Bobic on whether primacy and the Rule of Law crisis can be separated.

Top Frequently Asked Questions About Populism

Three experts, including Levente Littvay answer Google’s top 5 frequently asked questions about populism.

How the Apocalypticism of Islamic State Reflects Global Transformations

Suzanne Schneider and Ferenc Laczo discuss the modernity of new forms of jihad and explain explains why nihilism and apocalypticism can be viewed as responses to liberal triumphalism.

Can the Opposition Win the Upcoming Hungarian Elections?

Zsolt Enyedi and Daniel Rona talk about the key questions related to the cooperation between the united opposition parties in Hungary a few weeks before the upcoming elections.

REVIEW OF DEMOCRACY

The 

 (RevDem) is an open platform to discuss, analyze, reflect on, and develop possible solutions to the challenges to democracy across the globe today. The journal is published by the CEU Democracy Institute. Read its most important publications from recent weeks: 

5 Books on Ukraine

RevDem editor Katarzyna Krzyzanowska selected 5 books to encourage a better understanding of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian modern history and culture.

Read the list

.

“Russian Society Is Very Different from Its Regime”

Marlene Laruelle talks about illiberalism studies, whether Russia is fascist, the nature of Russia’s illiberalism, as well as its conservative soft power.

Read or listen to it

.

Transnational Lists and Beyond. How to Democratize Europe?

Reform of European electoral law has been a hot topic, and an agreement of the three biggest political groups in the European Parliament includes the introduction of transnational lists.

Read the opinion of top experts and practitioners in the first RevDem thread

.

MEET THE DILearn more about our colleagues! Click on the image below to watch their videos, in which they introduce themselves, and talk about their work. Stay tuned, a new video is coming every week.

Learn more about the CEU Democracy Institute