Within the scope of his project "State Powers and Citizens’ Challenging Authority in Times of Emergency", scholar Prof. Dr. Akos Kopper from the ELTE University Budapest, Hungary, looks at crisis like the on-going Covid-19-pandemic to for example learn about how one can deal with such emergencies. The project is funded within the Gerda Henkel Foundation's special program "Security, Society and the State" and is presented within this interview series. We thus asked scholar about the project's objective, as well as the contemporary relevance of the topic and why it is scientifically worthwhile to deal with it.
"This is probably the first crisis since WW II affecting almost all people everywhere on the globe"
L.I.S.A.: Dear Prof. Dr. Kopper, you are currently working on a research project on the topic of "State Powers and Citizens’ Challenging Authority in Times of Emergency - Security at Times of the Exception", which is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Could you briefly explain the scope of your project? Why is it scientifically worthwhile to deal with the topic?
Prof. Dr. Kopper: Emergencies are always critical moments for the functioning of democracies. Crises – like the COVID-19 pandemic – may make it necessary for states to circumvent established rules of democratic politics and to introduce exceptional measures that limit the life of their citizens in ways that are unacceptable in ordinary times. While it could be argued that an efficient response to a crisis justifies limiting dissent and calls on citizens to put aside their disagreements, it could also be argued that critical voices may offer essential correctives to mistaken policies. Thus, even though leaving room for protest and resistance to authority may undermine efforts to fight the pandemic, they are at the same time crucial elements of democratic life and could at times be invaluable for controlling authoritarian tendencies. On the one hand, my project is intersted in the different responses states have given to the pandemic and how they managed to acquire the support and compliance of citizens. On the other hand I am focussing on the means and ways citizens have articulated their critique and resistance to emergency measures.
Although people need to face emergency situations from time to time – from earthquakes, tsunamis to terrorist attacks - the pandemic differs from these in the sense that it equally effects all societies of the World. This is probably the first crisis since WW II affecting almost all people everywhere on the globe, even though the toolkit for authorities to deal with the crisis is the same: from the introduction of lockdowns to the wearing of facemasks or making attempts to vaccinate the greater part of their population, states’ responses to the pandemic, however, differ greatly, especially if we look at the way they deal with dissent and the type of resistance they face from their citizens. Here I am not only thinking of classic forms of resistance that involve collective action, such as protests, but I am also thinking of such individual forms of resistance as refusing vaccinations. While in some countries citizens willingly took the vaccine and demonstrated solidarity, in other countries, authorities were unsuccessful in acquiring the support and compliance of their citizens. Understanding these differences could be crucial in the future in order to confront upcoming crises more efficiently.
As no study can focus on the whole world, my project aims at a comparative study of five democracies – Germany, Sweden, the UK, Japan, and Hungary –, countries that show clear differences in the way they have confronted the pandemic.