At each Congress, the outgoing IPSA President organizes a Plenary session to gather prominent scholars worldwide. This tradition continued with IPSA President Marianne Kneuer. The Plenary aimed to shed light on the impact of COVID-19 on democracies in different regions of the world. For this purpose, the participants, Sheri Berman (USA), Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida (Brazil), Ivan Krastev (Bulgaria), Annie Chikwanha (South Africa), and Julio Teehankee (Philippines), addressed the topic from their regional perspective allowing a comparative panorama. The session began with the introductory speech of Prof. Dr. Kneuer, who drew a general picture of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on democracy. She then presented each speaker to the audience.
In her speech, Prof. Berman focuses on the Trump Administration’s chaotic response to the COVID-19 that deepened the existing divide among US citizens. As she indicated, the US President and right-wing media portrayed the pandemic as a hoax and as another attempt to destabilize his administration. Republican Party supporters also took the pandemic less seriously and widely ignored the recommendations of the scientific community. Prof. Berman emphasized that the pandemic accelerated the decay of American democracy, and Trump used the pandemic to erode democratic rights.
Then, Prof. Chikwanha drew a general picture of Africa in the face of the pandemic and detailed the main challenges that were intensified in the continent with the arrival of the pandemic, including the lack of health care accessibility and infrastructure. She also stressed that the state capacity, which is deficient in many countries in Africa, is an essential factor in responding to the crisis. Prof. Chikwanha also highlighted harsh military measures taken by certain regimes in Africa and mentioned that hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested for violating regulations to suppress the spread of the virus. Additionally, the African leaders used the pandemic as a pretext to limit civil and political liberties. Finally, Prof. Chikwanha pointed out China’s increasing influence on the continent by using the Sinovac vaccine.
The next speaker, Prof. Krastev, summarized how the pandemic has affected Europe’s citizens and their views on the continent’s politics and society. Similar to the other speakers, he confirmed that the existing divide in Europe was worsened due to COVID-19. Prof. Krastev also stressed that citizens lost trust in their government and institutions. He also talked about the paradox of the nationalist parties in Europe who had to reposition themselves. While they were attacking democracy before the pandemic, they now became the defenders of freedom. According to him, these parties have realized that economic nationalism doesn’t work and, as in the case of Italy, have even started supporting the government in its fight against the pandemic.
Prof. Tavares de Almeida focused on the main issues that Latin American countries face. These structural issues predate the pandemic, including poverty and inequalities, slow growth and tight fiscal constraints, the wave of widespread protests in the 2010s and troubled democracies. Caused by institutional instability, citizens’ distrust in political institutions and the rise of populist leaders were also among the challenges that Prof. Tavares de Almeida highlighted. Finally, she pointed out that the pandemic has deepened the structural threats to democracy, but it’s not clear if populist presidents benefited from it, as they constantly confronted parliaments, courts, and political opposition, which increased dissent and polarization in Latin America.
Finally, Prof. Teehankee explored the situation in Southeast Asia by indicating that while the pandemic contributed to the decaying of democracy in the region, this problem predated the pandemic. Prof. Teehankee analyzed the health of Southeast Asian democracy and focused on the four leaders of the region in terms of their responses to the pandemic. The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, adopted a militarized approach and passed anti-terror laws. The Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also declared strict emergency laws and unleashed a social media crackdown. Myanmar’s junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing, arrested political leaders, and the military launched a deadly crackdown on protesters. Finally, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin declared a state of emergency, suspended the parliament and postponed elections.
