WiSe 2023/24

The rise of authoritarianism and the erosion of civil society is observed worldwide. For instance, in recent years, authoritarian and radical right populists such as Donald Trump and Victor Orbán, attempted to appropriate and limit civil society. In Russia, civil society was subsequently replaced with its imitative model controlled by the authoritarian state. In this extreme case, this led to the authoritarian discourses and private interests of incumbents being legitimized at the core of such a pseudo-civil society; and its civil institutes, ideally gate-keepers of the civil society, started to execute repression of freedoms for the authoritarian regime. In the framework of this seminar, we will investigate different forms of authoritarianism and their influence on civil society worldwide. From the standpoint of Civil Sphere Theory, we will look at the authoritarian attempts to appropriate civil society and the risks connected to this. We will also examine extreme forms of such an appropriation expressed in the subsequent replacement of civil society with an imitation civil society controlled by the authoritarian state. The seminar will finish with students' presentations of the country-specific research on civil society and authoritarianism and its discussion in the framework of a conference.