The covid-19 pandemic may represent one of the most serious challenges to global democracy. Not only have long known authoritarian regimes or illiberal governments used the crisis as cover to rule by decree, postpone elections, arrest critics and heighten censorship. Even non-authoritarians won praise for limiting democratic freedoms „in ways that would have drawn condemnation in ordinary times“ (cf. Journal of Democracy, special issue on Covid vs. Democracy). We cannot know the ultimate impact of the pandemic on democracy yet but we can contribute to the risk analysis of the coronavirus measures from a democracy and human rights perspective. Our goal is to identify and warn when leaders engage in „executive overreach“ (cf. Diebel 2019) or – what can also constitute a threat to democracy and human rights – „executive underreach“ (Scheppele & Pozen 2020) and when democratic institutions come under stress. Our conference will contribute to an analysis of the Austrian crisis management strategy in relation to democracy and human rights. Therefore, we invite international and national experts to engage in a comparative assessment and to formulate recommendations for dealing with democracy and human rights in times of crisis.
For further details, please visit the conference homepage here.
Zoom-Link to Conference
Meeting-ID: 976 4762 3260
Kenncode: 427574