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The pandemic has shaped safety and the economy in profound ways. What does it mean for how governments work? How are leaders held responsible for pandemics? What does it mean for cross-national collaboration?

Speakers:

Ana Barbara Mungary-Moctezuma - Autonomous University of Baja California and member of Mexico´s National Research System

Phil Robertson - Human Rights Watch Asia

IU Alumnus Jianxun Wang - China University of Political Science and Law

This event is part of the webinar series Democracy around the World, presented by Indiana University’s Global Gateways. Webinars will be approximately 75 minutes long with time for Q&A. With the speakers’ permission, they will be recorded for students unable to attend live.

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States and non-state actors are exploiting the emergency to turn the screws on press freedom - everything from denying access through misapplied fake news laws to arrests and charges. IPI has been tracking these violations and press freedom restrictions from the beginning and we’ll share our conclusions and observations on the trends we identified; we will talk about what the greatest risks are and what we need to do about it.

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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the most significant challenge facing Southeast Asia since the 1997-98 economic crisis. As in the case of the economic crisis, politics determines how countries have responded. Adopting a broadly comparative perspective on the region, I outline some broad lessons from the first six months of the pandemic about how the region’s political systems, focusing on narratives of “good governance,” political accountability, and state-society relations. These lessons from this comparative approach travel beyond Southeast Asia, and comparisons will be drawn between the experiences of Southeast Asia and countries such as Germany, Taiwan, Rwanda, and the United States.

Speaker: Tom Pepinsky - Tisch University Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University

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The COVID-19 pandemic threatens more than the lives and the livelihoods of people throughout the world. It is also a political crisis that threatens the future of liberal democracy,” says a Call to Defend Democracy which was recently signed by more than 500 political, civil leaders, Nobel Laureates and pro-democracy institutions. Many governments around the world are using the global health crisis to silence critics, stifle the free flow of reliable information, escalate their disinformation efforts, and tighten their political grip. Moreover, the COVID-19 crisis has escalated the “battle of narratives” between democracy and authoritarianism. There is a debate about which governance system is best situated to protect citizens from the health crisis and deliver on the social contract with them. By raising awareness that the freedoms we cherish are under threat, the Call aims to mobilize citizens and policymakers to fight the battle of narratives and to defend democracy.

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Rachael V. Cobb, Ph.D. examines how election policies have changed as a result of the pandemic. As policy-makers and administrators adapt to new rules and protocols of election management, including vote by mail, changes to in-person voting among other things, citizen faith in the act of voting and the process of counting is critical to the integrity of the election and the legitimacy of its outcome.

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This fall over 75% of voters will be eligible to receive a mail ballot. The practice of voting at home has surged in popularity in the last decade with several states, including CO, OR, and WA implementing universal mail voting. In states where a majority of voters have not voted by mail in the past or where laws have changed in light of the covid-19 pandemic, nonprofits have a role to play in educating and preparing voters to participate in the coming election.

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Organized by Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ) Associate Professor of Law Security and Privacy Dorota Gozdecka (University of Helsinki) in cooperation with the ANU Gender Institute (Australian National University), the webinar will be run via Zoom platform. Registration is necessary to receive your Zoom invitation to join.

The program consists of two parts:

1. Covid and Rights in the Private Sphere &

2. Covid, Emergency and Rights in the Public Sphere.

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The IPI Turkish National Committee will be hosting the English-language webinar “Digital Censorship: Turkey’s New Social Media Law and Its Implications for Free Media” following the passage of Turkey’s controversial new social media regulations in July.

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The United States Postal Service has shot to the forefront of the national conversation amid concerns about mail in voting, equipment removals, overtime restrictions, and funding shortfalls. Many warn that without sufficient resources, USPS will not be able to handle the expected influx of mail-in ballots for the November election and that Americans will not receive timely delivery of medicine, bills, and payments. This week, House leaders will summon members back to Washington for a rare weekend vote on USPS legislation. The USPS postmaster general has also agreed to testify in front of the Senate and House about attempts to influence the campaign and cut costs right before a crucial election.

On August 26, Governance Studies at Brookings will host a webinar to discuss the United States Postal Service and its role in the election and overall economy. Panelists will explore what actions Congress and states can take to protect the USPS, what it means for voters between now and November, and other consequences Americans may experience due to disruptions in mail service.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) can play an important role in ensuring that human rights are not forgotten. Human rights are tools that we can use to steer governments towards making decisions that put the health and wellbeing of everyone at the forefront. However, many governments and media outlets frame human rights as an obstacle to public health. We often reinforce this damaging narrative unintentionally.

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Event Description

The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a health crisis, or even an economic crisis, but also a critical inflection point for democracy and the rule of law. The pandemic has presented a test for the legitimacy of democratic governance, and perhaps nowhere are the stakes higher than in Latin America, which as of August 5, as a region had the world’s highest death toll per population.

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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.

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Our expert panelists will discuss how the federal, state, county, and local governments have exercised statutory emergency powers in a patchwork attempt to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn about the several lawsuits challenging the pandemic orders that have been filed asserting federal and state constitutional violations.

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In August 2020, the American Bar Association passed updated Election Administration Guidelines that we encourage election officials to adopt. The panelists will discuss several of the guidelines, including voting during emergencies, absentee ballots, and voter purging.

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The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is pleased to invite you to a virtual book conversation with CEO of PEN America Suzanne Nossel to discuss her latest book Dare To Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. Set against the backdrop of partisan debates, disinformation, and increasingly polarized societies, the book explores how we can preserve democratic debate and free expression, while battling bigotry. It not only demonstrates the hazards of censorship, but offers a practical guide on speaking your mind without marginalizing others.

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Apart from its devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nature and quality of our democracies – democracy read in its widest sense here as collective and individual self-determination. Formal, institutional democracy has been curtailed through the imposition of states of emergency or disaster and the logistical difficulties associated with social distancing.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is posing a major test to public confidence in the leaders of democratic societies as well as in democracy itself. The pandemic strikes at a time when democracy and freedom are in global decline. The erosion, in particular, of press freedom is both a symptom and contributor to the breakdown of other democratic institutions and principles. Elected leaders in many democracies have made explicit attempts to undermine the separation of powers, foment social divisions, and silence critical media voices. Hear prominent journalists discuss how democracy in Israel, India, the US, and the Philippines is being eroded by contested elections, polarization and populist consolidation of power, weak leadership, and disinformation.

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Between the stresses imposed by the COVID pandemic and our highly polarized political environment, the country is facing a range of challenges. Please join us for the inaugural event in our Big Ideas Webinar Series, during which we will discuss the status of American democracy, the effects of the current health and economic crises on our political system and institutions, and what solutions could be adopted to strengthen our system of government. The conversation will feature Danielle Allen, professor at Harvard University and the director of Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "A Time to Build." Danielle and Yuval recently served on the American Academy of Arts & Science's Commission on Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, and we will discuss their new report, "Our Common Purpose”.

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The Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA) & the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s Rule of Law Program for Sub-Saharan Africa

The objective of the webinar is to provide an opportunity for participants to share their experiences, see what mistakes were made, and discuss ways in which we could prepare for any future pandemics. Papers from different countries that reflect the diverse constitutional traditions that operate in Africa will be presented to see how the different jurisdictions have responded to the pandemic.

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Young people under 30 make up half of the global population, yet their voices are often not represented in formal decision-making processes or included in policy design around issues that affect them. Young people need to be included in these processes at local, national and global levels to ensure the challenges that they face are considered in government responses and policies that impact them. Young people have the right to voice their opinion and the global community needs to facilitate a safe space for their participation particularly in times of a pandemic such as COVID-19.