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UID:euroseas-2022-democratic-resilience-and-civic-space-in-the-pandemic-era-competing-forces-adaptation-and-survival
SUMMARY:Democratic ‘Resilience’ and Civic Space in the Pandemic Era: Competing Forces, Adaptation and Survival
LOCATION:Room 3.07
DESCRIPTION:Countries in the world, specifically Southeast Asia, have exper
 ienced various forms of ‘crisis’ such as the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis an
 d the Covid-19 pandemic. This has led to portray forms of ‘state behaviours
 ’, which significantly impact democracy and human rights practices. The cri
 ses have seemingly allowed the state to blatantly exercise power which has 
 been used to directly disrupt democracy practices and corrode the promotion
  of human rights (Asia Centre, 2020).\n\nDuring this pandemic, the Global S
 tate of Democracy 2021 clearly states that democracy is now at risk. Its su
 rvival is endangered by a perfect storm of threats, both from within and fr
 om a rising tide of authoritarianism. Sadly, the Covid-19 pandemic has exac
 erbated these threats by implementing state emergency, the spread of disinf
 ormation and crackdowns on independent media and freedom of expression wher
 e civic space is known to be shrinking and suppressed.\n\nIn other words, t
 he pandemic has given stronger power to the state to suspend democratic act
 ivities, stifle political criticism, introduce intrusive movement tracking 
 and data gathering applications imposed on individuals (Asia Centre, 2020).
  Covid-19 has also caused an impact across multiple dimensions of fragility
  under the so-called democratic system. The pandemic creates new fragilitie
 s and has also amplified existing tensions and vulnerabilities. (Harrison a
 nd Kristensen, 2021). Various terminologies have shown the backsliding of d
 emocracy in the macro context, such as democratic erosion or a decline of t
 he democratic quality of democratic regression and set-back. Based on this 
 ironic phenomenon, it has become the main reason why the theme of this pane
 l is significantly essential to be discussed in this conference.\n\nHowever
 , despite the bleak pictures of democracy, we cannot see existing forms of 
 democracy ‘practices’ that have been impacted by Covid-19 as taken for gran
 ted or as something that is ‘given’. By no means in any circumstances, ther
 e are contested or competing ‘forces’ with diverse self-interests, such as 
 political elites, military apparatus, central and local government, regiona
 l interest, the business community, religious groups, NGOs and civil societ
 y organizations, which are all involved in shaping ‘the resilience of democ
 racy in its current form both in positive and negative ways.\n\nAuthoritari
 an governance, which emerged under such a democratic system, is an example 
 of the by-product of ‘weakening’, polarisation, fragmented or even the ‘def
 eat’ of pro-democratic actors within these competing forces. These forces m
 ay operate in various areas such as politics, state policies and regulation
 s, governance, development and the environment, economic cooperation, and c
 ollective identities (ethnic or religiousbased). Due to such competing forc
 es, democracy is progressively ‘adapting and struggling to survive.
URL:https://euroseas2022.org/panels/democratic-resilience-and-civic-space-in-the-pandemic-era-competing-forces-adaptation-and-survival
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Paris:20220630T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Paris:20220630T153000
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