The current COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a massive challenge to governments all over the world. At the same time, it provides the opportunity to gain insights into the ways in which different regimes respond to a crisis on a global scale and how these responses are accepted or challenged. Some measures that governments have taken to minimize the spread of the disease constitute unforeseen interventions into basic democratic rights that would have provoked massive resistance under different circumstances. For example, the freedom of movement has been significantly restricted with severe consequences for the right to protest and the spread of misinformation about the pandemic via mass communication technologies has been met with restrictions on the right to freedom of speech. In the wake of these developments, some critics accuse governments of exploiting the pandemic to install authoritarian forms of rule while others suggest that authoritarian forms of rule have allowed the spread of COVID-19 in the first place.

This gives rise to a number of questions: Are there certain yardsticks of measuring the proportionality of governments´ restrictions on the rights of their citizens under exceptional conditions? What are the long-term consequences of the pandemic on the relationship between governments and their citizens? Do different forms of rule contribute to the spread or the containment of the pandemic?

This web-talk, organized by the German Centre for Research and Innovation (DWIH) and supported by University of Heidelberg, University of Goettingen and Freie Universität Berlin will explore these issues by inviting academic experts to provide insights that can help gain a better understanding of the current situation.