Join Petri Gábor as he explores how disability movements operate within weakening democratic institutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
Disability is rarely studied in the context of democracy, despite the fact that disabled people represent 16% of the population, and that the disability rights movement has influenced laws and policies in all modern democracies. This presentation explores contemporary disability movements in changing and eroding democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), based on data collected in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia.
The speaker will address the question of social movement strategies in environments characterised by formal human rights laws, on the one hand, and weak or eroding democratic institutions on the other. He will critically analyse EU- and UN-driven government consultation practices in the region, which aim to ensure the inclusion of disability organisations in policy-making.
He argues that disability movement organisations are embedded in policy processes and government structures in diverse ways. To better understand why and how movement strategies are developed and executed, we must examine their position, resources, networks, and strategic aims. The presentation will propose a typology of disability movement organisations in the CEE region and point to potential risks for broader re-democratisation efforts.
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Gabor Petri is Post-doctoral Researcher at the CEU Democracy Institute, Budapest and in September CIVICA short-time Visiting Fellow at the EUI. He received his PhD at the University of Kent, Tizard Centre in 2019, where his research explored the position of self-advocates in the learning disability and autism advocacy movement. Gabor has 25 years of experience in the disability field. He has held various positions at disability rights organisations both in Hungary and in the EU and worked at public administration bodies as well. He was member of the Board of Directors of the European Disability Forum from 2013 to 2022, representing Mental Health Europe. In 2022, he was OSUN fellow: his research explored the position of the disabled people's movement in public policy-making. Gabor’s research interests include post-socialist disability policies, the disabled people’s movement, disability human rights, mental health policies, the use of EU Structural Funds, and community-based services.
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