CEU's Democracy Institute Strengthens Democratic Societies Through Research and Collaboration

The Democracy Institute (DI), a scholarly center based at Central European University’s (CEU) Budapest campus, is committed to strengthening democratic and open societies through top-tier research, collaboration across academic and professional disciplines, teaching, and public engagement. A major outlet for political research and academic collaboration across OSUN, DI is actively building on CEU’s 30-year legacy of world-class research and teaching as it seeks bold solutions to the challenges democracy is facing across the globe.

“DI has made great advances this year in expanding its global collaborative research ties and our new projects with European partners combine research, teaching and advocacy on issues of democratization and the rule of law,” says DI Director, Laszlo Bruszt.

In the past academic year, the DI’s output serves as quantifiable evidence of the amount of  work done towards supporting democracy, with 77 public events, 74 videos, 84 podcasts, and over 100 academic articles, chapters, books, and reports published. 

The institute’s activities have supported democratic values across Europe on the local, regional, and global levels. Its annual Budapest Forum, co-organized with the Municipality of Budapest and the research institute Political Capital, provided a platform for local and global thinkers to share innovative proposals for re-establishing the city's prominence as a progressive intellectual hub in the region with a focus on building sustainable democracies. The Institute’s flagship project, Neo-Authoritarianisms in Europe and the Liberal Democratic Response (AUTHLIB) used empirical and theoretical research to map the diverse forms of illiberal challenges across European nations.

One publication, Tainted Democracy, by Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, Program Director of the DI’s Leadership Academy, has received significant attention in Hungary and around the world, as it offers an insider’s account of Fidesz, Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s party.  A leading member of Fidesz during its early years, Szelenyi explains how the party evolved from liberalism to populist nationalism over three decades, rising to national leadership under Orban and making sweeping legal, political and economic changes to solidify its grip on power. The book also addresses the question of why Orban has been so successful in winning widespread support within Hungary and wielding considerable influence in European politics.

The DI’s online journal, The Review of Democracy, provides an open platform for discussion and debate on current processes of de- and re-democratization, as well as the historical dimensions of each. It publishes reflections and opinions, book reviews, and podcasts featuring leading scholars and activists. One notable piece this past year, a conversation between editor Kasia Krzyżanowska and Ewa Thompson, Professor of Slavic Studies Emerita at Rice University, explores persistent imperialistic motifs in Russian literature and how they reflect similar features of the Russian Federation.

An exciting, multipolar project launched by the DI in August, the OSUN Forum on Democracy and Development, brings research on trends in democracy to a whole new global level. Specifically, the Forum provides an inclusive critical platform for creative collaboration between scholars from the Global South and the Global North. Building on the rich resources and collaborative capacities of OSUN, the project is a new site for scientific and policy-related knowledge production, research incubation, and curriculum development. A collaborative and integrative effort among multiple OSUN institutions and partners across four continents, the Forum seeks to establish and support four regional and theme-specific research incubation hubs on Democratizing the Developmental State (South Africa); Exclusionary Regimes and Autocratization (Sri Lanka); New Patterns of Mobilization for and against Democracy (Colombia); and Populism and Ideology (Hungary). 

“The OSUN Forum provides a unique opportunity to foster worldwide scholarly dialogue about the factors of de-democratization and alternative pathways to re-democratization,” says Bruszt. “The research incubation in the framework of the Forum fosters scholarly innovation and creates lasting intra-and cross-regional collaborations as well as new teaching materials based on the deliberations among scholars from the Global South and Global North.”

In keeping with its mandate, the Forum is actively seeking applications for 32 new postdoctoral & senior research fellowships located at the DI in Budapest, Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, University of Cape Town, and the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka in Colombo. The initiative aims to establish a unique platform for interdisciplinary and cross-regional exchanges between scholars from the Global South and Global North, with the goal of redefining democracy in its political, social, and economic dimensions.

Stay tuned for more updates on the OSUN Forum on Democracy and Development, the Review of Democracy, and all the projects the Democracy Institute supports.

Post Date: 01-27-2024