CONFERENCE

Building Institutional Resilience

26-27 September 2024

University of Chicago – Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity

Chicago, USA

Organiser: Professor Tom Ginsburg

About the Conference

The recent assault on institutions in many countries has generated a new set of problems, unrecognized in older accounts of institutional change and not yet addressed in the literature on democratic backsliding. These include identifying what properties of institutions can render them resilient in the face of sustained assaults; how to reverse declines in institutional quality after a “near miss” event, in which backsliding was arrested; and how to think ahead about building resilient institutions in conditions of deep degradation. This workshop will address these questions.

Malyi Center workshops are designed to showcase work at a variety of stages, from early works-in-progress to more complete papers.

Speakers

The conference will convene a range of scholars, experts and policymakers worldwide pursuing ground-breaking approaches to the challenge of building institutional resilience in a range of political contexts. See details in the program below.

For related discussion, see the Constitutional Repair section in this hub. DEM-DEC Director Tom Daly will also speak on constitutional repair on Day 2 of this conference: see program below.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE MALYI CENTER

PROGRAM

26 September

8:45am

Welcome

Welcome from Dean Thomas J. Miles, Pavel Malyi, and Tom Ginsburg

9:00am

Panel I: Building Institutions in a Future Russia

Chair: Tom Ginsburg

Roger Myerson, University of Chicago, Reflections on local government after Putin

Comments: Konstantin Sonin, University of Chicago

Marina Zaloznaya, University of Iowa, Russia Without Oligarchs? Asset Seizure and Economic Justice after Putin

Comments: Egor Lazarev, Yale University

[Remote] Monika Nalepa, University of Chicago, Can transitional justice against Putin curb his repressions at home and abroad?

Comments: Tom Clark, University of Chicago

10:30am Coffee Break

10:50am

Panel II: Building institutions in a future Russia

Chair: Philip Petrov, University of Chicago

Timothy Frye, Columbia University, Workplace Politics and Electoral Subversion: Evidence from Russia

Comments: Zhaotian Luo

Yoshiko Herrera and Evgeniia Mitrokhina, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institutional Resilience: The Persistence of Data Availability and Transparency despite Authoritarianism

Comments: Philip Petrov, University of Chicago

Bryn Rosenfeld, Cornell University, State Dependency and Russia’s Future

Comments: Alexei Trochev, Nazarbayev University

12:30-1:45pm Lunch

1:45pm

Panel III: Problems of Transition

Chair: Zhaotian Luo

Sultan Mehmood, New Economics School, Network Effects in Democratic Reform: Evidence from Lawyers' Movement in Pakistan

Comments: Wioletta Dziuda, Harris School

Georg Vanberg, Duke University, Prosecutors after Dictatorship

Comments by Nuno Garoupa, George Mason

Alexei Zakharov, Yale University, Undoing the Work of Propaganda

Comments: Tom Ulen, University of Illinois

3:15-3:30pm Coffee Break

3:30pm

Panel IV: The Polish Problem: Institutional Repair After Near Misses

Chair: Madeleine Rogers, International IDEA

Marcin Szwed, University of Warsaw, The Problem of Judges in Poland

Comments: Hanna Folsz, Stanford University

Armen Mazmanyan, University of Armenia, Judicial Repair in Armenia

Comments: Nuno Garoupa, George Mason University

Susan Stokes, University of Chicago Trash-Talking Democracy

Comments: Aziz Huq, University of Chicago

27 SEPTEMBER

8:45 am

Prophylactic Constitutional Design Roundtable

Chair: Shamshad Pasarlay

Sumit Bisarya & Madeleine Rogers, International IDEA, Temporal Strategies in Democratic Backsliding: Time Rules and Constitutional Resilience

Yeghishe Kirkoriyan, Yerevan State University, International Law and Constitutional Backsliding

Tom Daly, University of Melbourne, Constitutional Repair

Comments: Ts. Munkh-Orgil, Mongolia

10:15-10:30am Coffee Break

10:30am

Roundtable on Trump II: An Agenda for Institutional Resilience in the United States