Erosion and Refiguration: Ethnographic Examinations Along the Democracy-Authoritarianism Matrix
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Research Factory B/ORDERS IN MOTION
28 January 2026
16:15 - 17:45
In presence in the Senate Hall (HG 109) & via Livestream
Prof. Dr Jens Adam (Head of the Department of Cultural Management, BTU Cottbus)
How might we ethnographically study the authoritarian transformations that are increasingly visible within formally liberal democracies? In many countries, we observe governments elected through democratic procedures deploying their electoral legitimacy to hollow out institutions and to reshape democratic principles in authoritarian ways. In this lecture, I explore how these dynamics might be traced ethnographically and what kinds of analytical vocabulary this requires. I approach this question by focusing on the border and on repressive border policies as a key driver of these transformations. Poland provides a telling case, not least because it offers a longer trajectory for examining the entanglement of border regimes with wider authoritarian shifts. On this basis, I propose to conceptualize authoritarian transformation as a dynamic interplay of erosion and refiguration that may be studied as shifts along the Democracy-Authoritarianism Matrix - a pattern that extends well beyond the Polish case and allows for comparative insights across diverse national contexts.
Moderation: Dr Anja Hennig (Viadrina Institute for European Studies)
The lecture will be held in English.
In cooperation with the Viadrina Institute for European Studies, IFES.
Please register here: https://forms.europa-uni.de/form/provide/2169/?lang=en