1. How did Serbia unite Chomsky, Mironov and Fukuyama? Engaging with the New Despotism
- Author:
- Vedran Dzihic and Gazela Pudar Drasko
- Publication Date:
- 08-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
- Abstract:
- It is difficult to imagine what could unite Jürgen Habermas, Francis Fukuyama, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Walzer, Yuval Noah Harari and Vladimir Mironov.1 However, the renowned Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade (IFDT), founded to settle dissident intellectuals expelled from the university for their involvement in the Yugoslav 1968 protests, managed to do so. An international appeal has reached us in the past few days which has revealed once more the ongoing clandestine attack on freedom of thought and academic autonomy in Serbia. Unfortunately, Serbia is not alone in democratic backsliding, neither in Southeast Europe or Europe more generally, nor at the global level. Democracy has been openly challenged in several EU states, while the most recent developments in the USA have revealed the depth of internal fractures in American liberal democracy. Thus, it is not surprising that the Southeast European region (SEE) - a post-conflict, semi-peripheral area in Europe - faces growing illiberalism and varying types of competitive authoritarianism and new despotism.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Law, and Authoritarianism
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Serbia