Newsletter 132       21 October 2021 
 

Fighting for the 'New Normal' 

• New Amnesty Report on freedom of expression in the Covid-19 era
• 2-part Blog Post on civic freedom and hope during Covid
• New project on civil society in endangered democracies 
• New analysis of Italy's Covid Green Pass and the protests in Rome
• Upcoming webinars including the Melbourne Forum 2021 
• Additional items in the Super-Blog and the Policy Hub

A new institutional collaboration between the University of Oxford and WZB Berlin has just started with the project “Collective Intelligence against the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Civil Society in Endangered Democracies” co-coordinated by Dr Thamy Pogrebinschi (WZB) and Dr Andreza A. de Souza Santos (Oxford). They seek to investigate the extent to which collective intelligence is a valuable resource for addressing public problems in countries with low state capacity and high social inequality. The project will pursue a case study in Brazil, the world’s third country most affected by the pandemic, in order to explore how civil society organizations have gathered and crowdsourced knowledge, information and data to improve government’s responses and directly address social problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Italy's Covid-19 'Green Pass' has extended to the workplace, stipulating: "from 15 October workers have to show evidence of (one) vaccination or of a negative Covid test in the last 48 hours. If they can't, they are sent home. And after five days of ‘unjustified absence’, they will have their pay suspended." No other European country has gone this far with its restrictions on unvaccinated workers. Thousands turned up in Rome protesting against the latest pandemic-related measure, which quickly deteriorated into violence and assault, exploited by the far-right neo-fascist groups, Forza Nuova. The author argues that "these events have reignited the debate about Italy’s fascist heritage, and led to calls on Prime Minister Draghi to dissolve the group. We have not seen the last of the protests against the Green Pass – nor of their likely exploitation by extremist groups."

See also:
EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF JOURNALISTS (EFJ), ‘Italy: Journalists face fresh violence covering ‘green pass’ protests’ (18 October 2021)
OPENDEMOCRACY, ‘How battling France’s COVID pass led the Left to embolden the far Right’ (4 October 2021)

Upcoming events in our Webinar Hub include several webinars and a couple of conferences listed below:

This Weekend
Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Malaysia): ‘Liberalism Conference 2021: The Fate of Liberal Democracy in Turbulent Times’ - 23-24 October

Next Week
Tuesday Petrie-Flom Center: ‘COVID-19, Science, and the Media: Lessons Learned Reporting on the Pandemic’ - 26 October 2021, 12.30-13.30 (EDT)
Tuesday - Beyond Covid - International IDEA: ‘Democracy and the Challenges of Climate Change’ - 26 October 2021, 14.00-15.15 (CEST)
Thursday-Friday - Beyond Covid - African Network of Constitutional Lawyers: ‘ANCL Hybrid Conference 2021: Checking the Tide of Democratic Regression in Africa’ - 28-29 October 2021
Saturday Chatham House: ‘Latin America 2021: Elections, economic recovery, foreign policy and the COVID-19 effect’ - 30 October 2021, 13.00-17.00 (GMT)

2-Part Event
2 & 4 November Melbourne Forum on Constitution-Building in Asia and the Pacific: 'Democracy, Constitutions & Dealing With The World'. 4 sessions across 2 days on the external face of constitutions including international approval of constitution-making, treaty-making, international investment and international relations. 

New blog posts this week include items from a partner blog symposium and a UK-based blog, both of which are included in our Super-Blog: 

Verfassungsblog Symposium: International Pandemic Lawmaking
Pedro VILLARREAL, ‘Scientific Innovation in International Pandemic Lawmaking’ (18 October 2021)
Ciara STAUNTON & Deborah MASCALZONI, ‘Taking Data Sharing Seriously: Public Interest and Solidarity as Principles for an International Pandemic Treaty’ (12 October 2021)

Bingham Centre Blog
Katie LINES, ‘18 Months of COVID-19 Legislation in England: A Rule of Law Analysis’ (16 October 2021)
Katie LINES & Richard Mackenzie-Gray SCOTT, ‘Written evidence submitted to the UK Government's consultation on mandatory COVID certification in a Plan B scenario’ (15 October 2021)

A number of new analyses have emerged since the beginning of the month aiming at dissecting the ongoing global impact of Covid-19 on elections, rule of law, democratic backsliding and authoritarianism, civil society and human rights, and more:

Elections
DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA, ‘How should African countries hold elections during the pandemic?’ (18 October 2021)
INTERNATIONAL IDEA, ‘Update: Global overview of COVID-19: Impact on elections’ (18 October 2021)
INTERNATIONAL IDEA, ‘A baseline for discussion: Unpacking recommendations for Covid-resilient presidential elections in Timor-Leste’ (7 October 2021)
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ‘Justin Trudeau’s Failed Election Gambit’ (1 October 2021)
WILSON CENTER, ‘Democracy in Canada? It’s Complicated.’ (29 September 2021)

Rule of Law
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, ‘Rule of law takes a big hit during COVID-19’ (18 October 2021)

Democratic Backsliding and Authoritarianism/Fascism
OPENDEMOCRACY, ‘Tunisia’s president has given himself unprecedented powers. How will he use them?’ (19 October 2021)
OPENDEMOCRACY, ‘Did democracy in Tunisia fail or did it never succeed?’ (14 October 2021)
THINK GLOBAL HEALTH, ‘The Devastating Impact of COVID-19 on Democracy’ (27 September 2021)
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA, ‘Pro-vax, pro-union, anti-fascist: Three things to be proud of’ (15 October 2021)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, ‘Tunisia: Carving up the Constitution represents a threat to human rights’ (5 October 2021)
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA, ‘From fascism to farce to the next election’ (1 October 2021)

Civil Society and Human Rights
ASIAN FORUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT, Conference Proceedings: ‘Human Rights in the Time of COVID-19: Addressing the Crisis in Southeast Asia’ (1 October 2021)
ASIAN FORUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT, Conference Outcome Document: ‘Towards a Better Partnership Between Civil Society Organisations, National Human Rights Institutions, and ASEAN Human Rights Mechanisms to Address the Pandemic’s Impact on the Human Rights Crisis in Southeast Asia’ (30 September 2021)
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE, ‘Civil Society and the Global Pandemic: Building Back Different?’ (30 September 2021)

Others
HANSARD SOCIETY, ‘Coronavirus Act renewal: Into the sunset?’ (18 October 2021)
FORUM OF FEDERATIONS, ‘Digitalization in Federal Governments: Impacts on Service Delivery’ (8 October 2021)
HANSARD SOCIETY, ‘The House of Lords after the pandemic’ (8 October 2021)
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, ‘Is COVID-19 Shaking Up Politics in Southeast Asia?’ (6 October 2021)
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS (CPJ), ‘‘It is becoming unbearable:’ Journalists say they have become ‘scapegoats’ at anti-vaccine protests’ (4 October 2021)
LOWY INTERPRETER, ‘Indonesia: painted politics’ (30 September 2021)

The International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy recently launched a newsletter called “Pandemic Ploys: Authoritarian Manipulation and Democratic Resilience During COVID-19.” They analyze the COVID-19 pandemic’s global impact on democratic integrity, with featured topics including narrative competition in the information space, vaccine distribution, authoritarian manipulation of the pandemic to expand repression, emerging health technologies’ impact on democratic principles and privacy, among other themes. Their latest edition is here, and you can subscribe here. And you can follow them on Twitter here.