Conference reports Standing Up for Democracy and Academic Freedom
Current research tell us that we are presently facing a global wave of autocratization. Gradual declines of democratic attributes characaterize political regimes worldwide. Technology opens up for democratic interaction, but also makes it easy to spread fake news. Freedom of expression is in peril. Universities all around the world encounter repression of academic freedom. To discuss these and other challenges, Linnaeus University (in Växjö) organized a digital conference on A Questioned Democracy, on November 15, 2023.
Published on balticworlds.com on November 15, 2023
Current research tell us that we are presently facing a global wave of autocratization. Gradual declines of democratic attributes characaterize political regimes worldwide. Technology opens up for democratic interaction, but also makes it easy to spread fake news. Freedom of expression is in peril. Universities all around the world encounter repression of academic freedom. To discuss these and other challenges, Linnaeus University (in Växjö) organized a digital conference on A Questioned Democracy, on November 15, 2023.
The program started with a lecture on alternative media by professor Kristoffer Holt (Linnaeus University), followed by three panel discussions. The first was moderated by Douglas Brommesson (Linnaeus University) and focused on democracy and artificial intelligence. The participants included Johannes Geith (Stockholm University), Micael Grenholm (Lund University), Fredrik Ahlgren (Linnaeus University) and Marie Alpman (from the journal Forskning och framsteg). The second panel discussion was on the harassment of women in public life, and included Fanny Holm (Umeå University), Annika Hamrud (Linnaeus University) and David Brax (Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research), with Sofie Thornhill (Linnaeus University) as moderator. The third panel discussion was about conspiracy theories and was moderated by Tobias Bromander (Linnaeus University). The participants were Andreas Önnerfors and Emma Ricknell (Linnaeus University) and Johan Farkas (University of Copenhagen).
The invited keynote speaker for the conference was Pippa Norris (Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University), renowned comparativist and a specialist in research on democracy. Among her achievements, she has received the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Political Science Association (in 2014), and together with Ronald Inglehart, she was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 2011.
In her keynote lecture, Norris addressed the roots of democratic backsliding. Despite a few initial technical issues, she started by noting that today, in countries as diverse as India, Hungary, Brazil, Venezuela, and Turkey, the rule of law and liberal democratic institutions have been gradually undermined by authoritarian forces that strive for increased polarization and do not hesitate to trample over conventional norms safe-guarding civil liberties and minority rights. Furthermore, strongman leaders a number of countries have become more repressive (for example, in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea). The future of liberal democracy around the world thus looks bleak, it would seem. However, despite intense concern, no consensus has yet emerged in the research literature about the severity of the problem; or, if it is even correct to talk about an ongoing global wave of autocratization. Norris emphasized that a more nuanced picture is needed.
The fact that we can observe democratic backsliding in different countries today is not ascribable to one single factor; rather, there are different possible explanations, including party polarization and manipulation of institutions. In particular, Norris underlined the importance of authoritarian values; something that has received only very little scholarly attention in recent decades. In her forthcoming study on The Cultural Root of Democratic Backsliding (Oxford University Press, 2025) she will elaborate further on this.
To simplify, in her forthcoming book, Norris suggests that formal regime institutions are more likely to endure where they reflect the norms and values of its citizens. (Norris refers to this as “updated congruence theory”). This means that both democratic and authoritarian regimes will probably persist over time, as long as formal state institutions fit the predominant cultural values, norms and mass beliefs in society. Conversely, where cultural values and norms are inconsistent with the formal institutional rules (making the authorities lack popular legitimacy), political regimes are likely to change. In this way, Norris foresees some cases of progressive democratization, where authoritarian regimes will break down, following popular demands for democracy, freedom, and human rights. But, she also expects more cases of democratic backsliding, in states where formal democratic constitutions may exist, but where informal norms among both elites and citizens are in line with a preference for elected strongman rule (i.e. authoritarian values).
Launch of new SAR report: Free to Think 2023
Academic freedom is central aspect of democratic development (and for that matter, in analyses of democratic backsliding). On 9–10 November 2023, the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA) arranged its second conference on “Academic Freedom in the Americas”, a hybrid event taking place in Curitiba, Brazil. Gathering freedom right advocates, academics and activists, the conference featured panels on contemporary threats academic freedom, political control of higher education institutions, university autonomy, and legislation aimed at silencing researchers. The conference also served as the official launch of the Free to Think 2023 report by Scholars at Risk (SAR).
Free to Think is an annual report by Scholar at Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, published since 2015. The report monitors attacks on higher education communities around the world by identifying and tracking key incidents, year by year. Free to Think 2023 have documented 409 such attacks on researchers and students in 66 countries, from July 2022 to June 2023. The reports highlights in particular the situation in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Mexico, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Sri Lanka. Turkey, Ukraine and the US. The report thus covers the three countries that stand out as especially problematic in the European context: Turkey, Ukraine and Russia.
In Turkey, an increasingly authoritarian environment has negatively impacted academic freedom and university autonomy, from 2016 and onwards. The report highlights increasing self-censorship, a climate of fear, and scholars leaving the country altogether. Individual researchers, critical of governmental policies, run the risk of being dismissed from their positions, put on trial, or having their passports revoked. The higher education situation in Ukraine is of course directly related to Russia’s invasion, which has had devastating consequences. Russian forces continue to damage and destroy civilian infrastructure, including higher education facilities.
Since February 2022, already low levels of academic freedom in Russia have declined further, not the least because of the ongoing war in Ukraine: increasing restrictions on the freedom of academic and cultural expression in general; and increasing militarization in particular. The idea is that, beginning in the fall of 2023, all Russian universities and secondary schools will have a required course on military training and nationalism. Like Turkey, Russia has experienced a significant brain drain among academics in recent years.
Also, in March 2023, the Russian government officially labelled the Moscow Free University as an “undesirable organization”. This is a legal designation: Russian laws allow citizens to be prosecuted for any “participation in the activities” of such organizations. The authorities are thus declaring teachers and students who attend independent seminars and engage in free academic discussion as criminals. The Free University was one of the few still existing autonomous universities in Russia.
Notes
The global decline of democracy is evidenced by the Global State of Democracy 2023 report. This report, produced by International IDEA in Stockholm, highlights democratic developments around the globe (in 173 countries). The 2023 report (“The New Checks and Balances”) ranks countries in four major categories of democratic performance rather than one overall classification: representation, rights, rule of law and participation. The key finding in the report is democracy has continued to weaken, globally. Presently, there are more countries that experience declines in democratic performance, than countries that see advances – for the sixth time year in a row. The most common democratic deficit is related to fair elections, effective parliaments, and the rule of law situation. The Global State of Democracy 2023 can be found here: https://www.idea.int/gsod/2023/.
The Free to Think reports are freely available online at https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/free-to-think-reports/.
The most recent publications by Norris may be found at https://www.pippanorris.com.