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As 2020 began, the world watched as the COVID-19 pandemic slowly spread its way across the globe. Across the countries of ASEAN, this unprecedented event played out in diverse ways. Countries like Vietnam demonstrated highly effective ways of managing the virus, whereas others, like Indonesia, spent considerable time denying its existence. These experiences reflect quite different responses to the pandemic – differences that underscore the diversity of political, economic and health landscapes across the ASEAN region.

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The New Despotism: some thoughts on its principal ideas and reception

Drawing on extensive travels, interviews, and a lifetime of thinking about democracy and its enemies, The New Despotism shows how governments from Russia and China through Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe are mastering a formidable combination of political tools that threaten the established ideals and practices of power-sharing democracy. They mobilize the rhetoric of democracy and win public support for workable forms of government based on patronage, dark money, steady economic growth, sophisticated media controls, strangled judiciaries, dragnet surveillance, and selective violence against their opponents. The book casts doubt on such fashionable terms as dictatorship, autocracy, fascism, and authoritarianism. It makes a case for retrieving and refurbishing the old term “despotism” to make sense of how these regimes function and endure. Like Montesquieu in the eighteenth century, the book stresses the willing complicity of comfortable citizens in all these trends. And, like Montesquieu, The New Despotism worries that the practices of despotism are closer to home than we care to admit. Click here for further details.

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Countries around the world are facing an unprecedented challenge in dealing with the global outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. The measures being put in place, while often timely and necessary, have real and sometimes unanticipated impacts on our democratic practices and processes.

Citizen participation processes around the world were delayed or suspended by lockdown measures. Experts on citizen participation join us for an interactive discussion.

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In recent years, the world has witnessed Poland transforming its highly celebrated democracy, while giving rise to populist movements and ideas. While the Polish case-study has its specificities, backsliding of democratic regimes towards other, flawed, types of democracies is perceived as a global phenomenon and cause for concern. But are there really similar characteristics between the various relevant cases? And if so - can other countries and democracy-promoting agents learn from the Polish situation in order to counter-play such developments? Through a discussion in the most comprehensive work on the Polish case-study – Professor Wojciech Sadurski's latest book "Poland's Constitutional Breakdown" – this webinar provides an opportunity to discuss these and other quintessential questions from a comparative outlook.

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Support for Scottish independence is at record levels. Support for a united Ireland is at record levels. Support for Welsh independence is at record levels.

The British state's management of the COVID crisis has widely been seen as disastrous. Will the pandemic accelerate the break-up of the United Kingdom?

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Countries around the world are facing an unprecedented challenge in dealing with the global outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. The measures being put in place, while often timely and necessary, have real and sometimes unanticipated impacts on our democratic practices and processes.

Public life grinds to a halt during a lockdown. At the same time political decisions have more far-reaching consequences than ever for citizens. How can we ensure accountability even in times of crisis? Experts on lobbying and transparency join us for an interactive discussion.

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The COVID-19 crisis has made citizens across Europe more cautious about engaging in political and civic life and postponed or halted many political and electoral processes. While many countries in the region have started to reopen, public health concerns for the present and future remain unclear. In this environment, the challenges young people face when participating in political processes are exacerbated, as there are fewer opportunities for them to engage in face-to-face community activities and in formal and informal democratic processes.

As a result, many young people have taken to digital activism. These new conditions for youth civic engagement require innovations for online engagement to expand entry points for young people to develop their capacity to advocate for change.

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On 30 July, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) will host an online interview featuring questions from the public with Alex Thier, former director of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Obama administration international aid advisor, to celebrate the launch of his new paper, A Force for Good in the World: Placing Democratic Values at the Centre of the UK’s International Strategy.

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This is an intergenerational, transnational academic virtual event on race, law and the global pandemic, discussing the potential for radical change.

From the disproportionate rates of illness and death amongst people of colour, to the risks faced by the high numbers of racialised people in frontline work, Covid-19 has shown how contrary to ‘not discriminating’ between people, long-standing inequalities are rendered ever starker during pandemic times. Contemporaneously, existing and new networks of care and numerous calls to act and think otherwise suggest that there is potential for radical change during and in the aftermath of this pandemic.

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Campaigns across the country are now entering their final push before the general election. If the events of the last few years are any indication, there are many things that can go wrong. Disinformation, social media manipulation, and foreign interference all affected the 2016 elections and will likely continue to threaten elections moving forward. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated voting procedures and led to long lines in some polling places. How should government officials and local leaders confront these challenges? How can we avoid the myriad of problems that could afflict the elections?

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Join us for this online event with Anne Applebaum at which she will discuss her new book, Twilight of Democracy. As well as a work of memoir and reporting, it is a deep meditation on the central political dilemma of our time: Why did the wave of enthusiasm for liberal democracy, shared across the political spectrum in the 1980s and 90s, come to an end? How did we come to be so divided? Why did everyone get so angry?

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Democracy works best when all perspectives are included, but college students face unique barriers to participating in civic life. This panel will present how the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement and Dukes Vote are building the capacity of students as they lead 2020 Census and voter engagement initiatives. Presenters will discuss how students developed and implemented a campus civic engagement plan and what they’ve learned as best practices and strategies for achieving full participation even in a time of global crisis.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted international relations and international development across the globe. While Africa has combatted pandemics before, the length, breadth, and depth of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ramifications for African affairs — from peacekeeping and international trade to human rights and humanitarian assistance — are far-reaching.

On July 24, the Africa Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution will host a panel of experts on conflict, political violence, and international law to discuss what has been happening throughout the continent during the crisis, what has and has not been effective, the many political and security implications of the crisis, as well as what the rest of the world can learn from the public health practices Sub-Saharan Africa has employed to combat the virus.

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Join this RSA Global event, hosted in partnership with the RSA’s Augmented Society Network, as we question technological responses to the pandemic and issues of data privacy, trust, transparency and accountability.

Around the world, governments are boosting high-tech surveillance capabilities to stem the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, technology companies and members of society they are meant to serve are contending with another threat – what the head of the World Health Organization has called an ‘infodemic’ of false information online. Mixed with the public’s growing push back on technology and our greater awakening to the personal data that continues to be mined, the opportunities to mitigate further disaster due to the pandemic through “Track and Trace” products are equally promising and challenging.

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For this live event, we are convening some of Africa’s leading journalists and civic activists to discuss the ways in which authoritarian governments are manipulating the coronavirus pandemic to undermine free speech and the best ways to resist censorship and speak truth to power. The audience will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.

• 6pm Addis Abeba/Nairobi

• 5pm Paris/Cairo/Cape Town

• 4pm London/Casablanca/Kinshasa

• 3pm Dakar/Accra

• 11am New York

Send your questions for the panel via WhatsApp to +263 77 623 8199

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This event is the third in a series of three webinars.

Chair:

Ronan Cormacain, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law

Speakers:

Dr Eric Windholz - Monash University, Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies

"Governing in a Pandemic: From Parliamentary Democracy to Autocratic Technocracy"

Dr Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov - Bar-Ilan University

"Covid-19 Meets Politics: The Novel Coronavirus as a Novel Challenge for Legislatures"

James R. Maxeiner - Center for International and Comparative Law, University of Baltimore School of Law.

"Covid 19 America: A Government of men not laws"

Győry Csaba & Nyasha Weinberg - Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

"Emergency Powers in a Hybrid Regime. The Case of Hungary"

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Discussion to be held through English and Portuguese

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The celebrated former Supreme Court judge, Jonathan Sumption, used last year's Reith lectures to warn that "law's expanding Empire" was encroaching onto contentious fields where things are better settled by democratic politics than the courts. This year, he has warned against the lengthening arm of the law in the context of the coronavirus lockdown.

So are democracy and the rule of law both at risk? Or should we be grateful that we have judges who are willing to be proactive in defending individual rights, and politicians who can act dramatically and swiftly to safeguard the public good?

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You are cordially invited to apply for the Online Kathmandu Democracy Forum (KMDF) for an opportunity to present a monitoring paper about the impact of COVID-19 on democracy in terms of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and human rights. The reports will be focused on human rights and democracy and the civil society response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to democracy in respective countries.

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This first-of-its-kind course offers the unique opportunity to hear directly from high court judges around the world on the challenges of judging in times of crisis--and also to engage in conversation with these leading jurists on this important and timely subject. This seven-week course will be held live on Zoom starting on July 16, 2020. The precise dates and times follow below. Note that these times are subject to change. The Zoom details will be provided to all course registrants.