I wish I had been wrong: the performance of Hungary’s illiberal regime during the epidemic’s second wave

András Kádár is co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and a partner of CENDEP in its human rights research in recent years. Last year he contributed an article to the special feature of the Journal of Human Rights Practice on COVID-19 and human rights. Unfortunately, the long production schedules of academic publishing don't fit well with fast-moving events, so we invited András to bring his analysis of the pandemic response in Hungary up to date.

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In my opinion piece “In its Nature — How Stealth Authoritarianism Keeps Stealing Along During the Pandemic, and How Can it be Stopped?” written for the Journal of Human Rights Practice, I argued that illiberal regimes during large-scale crises including the COVID epidemic were like the fable’s scorpion that stings the frog carrying it through the river although that means death for both of them. Their illiberal nature determines their often self-destructive ways of dealing with crises. At times that call for unity, they opt for polarization. Instead of transparency, they monopolise information and restrict the freedom of expression. They use the crisis to further weaken checks and balances instead of reinforcing public trust by strengthening the executive’s oversight. 

These traits can have tragic consequences. Effectively combating such a health care crisis requires cooperation and trust from society. Any democratic government can only expect this if it explains and is ready to discuss its strategy openly. The Hungarian example shows that this kind of openness is simply not in the nature of illiberal regimes, and the most recent developments highlight this deficiency’s potentially fatal consequences. 

Draw your own conclusions: Introduction and history of visual research

 In the first of a series of posts, Aparna Maladkar writes about data visualisation:

A recent first of its kind, unique competition ‘Digging the Data’ (2018) held by 360Giving charity proves to be illustrative in appreciating how far data visualisation can go to understand its role in research. This challenge invited developers, students, researchers, data artists, graphic designers, data journalists, designers and analysts to analyse datasets of over 290,000 grants over multiple years, and to create visual diagrams to better understand key questions facing the grantmaking sector regarding funding, thematic areas preferred by funders, and amounts they give. The competition intended to help grantmakers, fund seekers and policy makers to make better decisions and choices, while developing a ‘bridge between the data and the public’.[1]The staggering amount of funding data was sieved to create numerous beautiful and illustrative winning entries. By using a variety of digitial tools, the results were interactive and stimulating diagrams that successfully transformed tedious data into stunning artworks easy to read and comprehend by all.

 

Data visualisation or visual research can be a useful and powerful tool. The ‘Draw’ Your Own Conclusions (DYOC) Blog-Series will consider some key questions for data visualisation including what are the added benefits of a drawn word in research; how successfully has it been applied; are specialised qualifications or tools necessary to become a data visualisation expert. The DYOC Series will aim to answer these questions by looking at the history of visual research, some successful as well as failed case studies, its usefulness, the powerful emotions and impacts they convey, and the approach and tools necessary to create effective diagrams. 

Climate and Ecology Emergency Bill

 EL Laskar writes:

On 11 December 2020 the 19th Oxford Human Rights Festival hosted an online discussion in collaboration with Climate and Ecology Emergency Bill Alliance Oxfordshire. With the support of over 26 local Oxfordshire organisations, the event celebrated our climate change achievements locally and in the UK and discussed how we could continue to have strong climate leadership into the future.