Workshop on the theme "Authoritarianism and Democratic Resurgence in South Asia"

The full workshop description reads:

Over the past two decades, autocratisation has surged globally. This trend typically unfolds gradually, with regimes maintaining a legal façade, while elected political leaders dismantle various restraints on their exercise of power. They target oversight institutions (e.g. the judiciary, opposition, media and civil society) and restrict civil liberties. 

This incremental, leader-driven process is known as democratic erosion, and it is a development that has deeply affected states in South Asia during the last 15 to 20 years. However, while, for instance, India’s autocratisation might be described as still unfolding, recent events in Bangladesh and Nepal instead point in the direction of a possible democratic revival. 

During this workshop, we focus on the factors that underpin autocratisation processes in South Asia, the questions of when and how authoritarian rhetoric and action meet resistance and lose influence, and the significance of the seeming reversal of democratic decline that we observe in a number of South Asian states.