Pub­lic Pan­el Dis­cus­sion: Soft Author­i­tar­i­an­ism in Geopo­lit­i­cal Complexities

In this pub­lic open­ing event of our YIS­ARES 2022 autumn school four pan­elists will reflect on the effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine on soft author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments and ten­den­cies. On the one hand, they will address geopo­lit­i­cal con­se­quences: In which way has the war shift­ed the strate­gic posi­tion of coun­tries such as Turkey, India, Poland and Hun­gary? What new geopo­lit­i­cal align­ments and alliances between soft author­i­tar­i­an and author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments can be observed? And which crit­i­cal insights can we gain by scru­ti­niz­ing the dis­cur­sive oppo­si­tion between author­i­tar­i­an­ism and democ­ra­cy fierce­ly enforced by some West­ern actors from a post­colo­nial per­spec­tive? On the oth­er hand, the pan­elists will exem­plar­i­ly exam­ine the domes­tic con­se­quences of these geopo­lit­i­cal shifts: How does the war affect soft author­i­tar­i­an agen­das in Hun­gary, India or Turkey? Do the inten­si­fied geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions offer new oppor­tu­ni­ties to push for­ward rightwing poli­cies, the mil­i­ta­riza­tion of pub­lic life or the pro­mo­tion of hate speech in polit­i­cal dis­course? Or might new align­ments and risks on the inter­na­tion­al lev­el in some cas­es rather slow down the author­i­tar­i­an transformation?

Pan­elists
Evren Bal­ta (Özyeğin Uni­ver­si­ty)
Ran­abir Samad­dar (Cal­cut­ta Research Group)
Rena­ta Uitz (Cen­tral Euro­pean University)

Chair
Shali­ni Ran­de­ria (Cen­tral Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty & U Bre­men Excel­lence Chair)

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