The globalisation of academic freedom: contestation and resilience

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This International Relations Working Group session features a talk by Prof. Tanja Anita Börzel (Freie Universität Berlin).

The talk will tackle a paradox related to the emergence of academic freedom as a global norm. Being a latecomer among liberal rights, the institutionalisation of academic freedom at the international level has been driven by its increasing contestation at the domestic level as part of the rise of authoritarian populism. The talk investigates the extent to which the globalisation of academic freedom has been the result of a global diffusion process in addition to national developments, such as modernisation and democratisation. It will also discuss the extent to which institutional and other factors make academic freedom resilient against assaults in democracies around the world.

Speaker:

Dr. Tanja A. Börzel is professor of political science and holds the Chair for European Integration at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin. She is director of the Cluster of Excellence 'Contestations of the Liberal Script' and the head of the Berlin Center for European Studies. Prof. Dr. Börzel earned a PhD from the European University Institute. Her research focus and teaching experience lie in the field of European Integration, Governance, and Diffusion research. She concentrates on questions of institutional change as a result of Europeanisation as well as on the diffusion of European ideas and policies within and outside the EU. In her recent research, she investigates the contestation of liberal norms, such as academic freedom, within democratic societies.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration.