The Decline of Academic Freedom in Eastern Europe – In search of a new research agenda

Abstract

The regression of democratic quality and the emergence of competitive authoritarian regimes have been among the main political phenomena across the globe of the past 20 years (Levitksy & Way 2002, 2020; Levitksy & Ziblatt 2018). The countries of the former Soviet-bloc and South-Eastern Europe are one of the most affected regions in the world in backsliding. In fact, by any indicator whether of democracy watchdogs (e.g., Freedom House) or academic institutes (e.g., V-Dem project), it is EU member states once hailed as the vanguard of democratization, such as Hungary and Poland that regressed the most during the past decade (but regression is the general trend across post-communist EU member states). However, at the same time outside of the EU, fledgling democracies such as Turkey or hybrid regimes such as Russia have become increasingly overt authoritarian regimes. Backsliding combined with strengthening extremism represents an ever-growing strain on academic freedom. The Academic Freedom Index (Kinzelbach et al. 2021) evaluates the freedom of academic institutions in five areas: the freedom to research and teach, the freedom of academic expression and dissemination, institutional autonomy, campus integrity, and the freedom of academic and cultural expression. According to the latest report published in March 2021, in the Eastern European region there are worrying trends in all components of academic freedom. In Turkey, a country with relatively high scores even 15 years ago, academic freedom in all areas has been almost completely abolished. Poland, where the overall quality of academic freedom is still high, there are downward trends since 2015, particularly in campus integrity, the freedom of academic and cultural expression, and institutional autonomy. In the overall assessment, there are no post-Soviet countries – except for the three Baltic states – that have a composite index score higher than 0.6 (C status). Hungary is the lowest ranked EU member state (C status), its composite score is now lower than Ukraine’s, the highest ranked non-EU member post-Soviet country. In a historical context, the twist of events is remarkable. The re-establishment of academic freedom and university autonomy were an act of faith upon the restoration of democracy. Throughout the post-communist region university systems based on Humboldtian notions of unfettered academic freedom and strong links between teaching and research were restored. Academic freedom and self-regulation were key elements of the return to democracy (Kováts, Heidrich, & Chandler, 2017). These trends make it ever more urgent to investigate the state of academic freedom in the region beyond descriptive studies. The panel brings together higher education scholars, political economists, and interest group scholars, who all bring their own theoretical and methodological approaches. The variety of cases – both EU and non-EU members, post-communist and non-post-communist ones – also serves to provide new perspectives. The panel aims at forging interdisciplinary collaborations as a first step towards a new research agenda.

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