EaP Monthly Bulletin

Journal of Human Rights, 2020

The outbreak of COVID-19 has ushered in a global rise in state surveillance. In an effort to trace the spread of the disease and to enforce lockdowns, governments in democracies and autocracies alike have turned to surveillance technologies such as contact tracing apps. Governments have also tightened their hold on communication flows in other ways, through censorship and information manipulation. These kinds of government actions are not new: States have long recognized the value of controlling information in times of crisis. In this article, we consider these tactics in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which, unlike most other security threats, the threat posed is not endogenous to governance and applies to all countries. We consider how observations from this context prompt future research and reflect on the implications of information control for civil liberties.

Ius in Itinere, 2021

The global health alarm raised by the Covid-19 emergency has shaken the national leaderships discharging on private third parties the burden of supervising and implementing the operational tools to assert the right to security. In this context, questions arose about the admissibility of surveillance measures based on computer tracking of movements of individuals positive to Covid-19 and the subsequent test administration for those who had close contacts with them during the virus incubation period.

Big Brother is watching you! Surveillance and freedom of information during Covid-19 crisis, 2022

The freedom of speech, the right to inform and be informed, the right to have your own views of the world-your own perceptions-and act on them, the right to use alternative sources of information and question or evaluate official news and data, the right to do your own research, gather information and facts and publish them, for me, are fundamental and unquestionable. The balance between individual rights and state regulations, has been seriously challenged during the Covid-19 global crisis, when new ways to live and act were presented and applied (lockdowns, distance, masks, etc.). Among all these regulations, a problematic phenomenon is widely seen-an attempt to control, censor or cancel any alternative views or personal concerns about health, free choice or body autonomy. In this paper, I present facts and examples on how the individual rights has been undermined, in the name of security, order, or 'the greatest good'. Through media monitoring, previous studies, cases and personal observations, I aim to raise some important questions and draw some lines between individual freedoms and state or global security, human rights and state surveillance, relating to some important ethical principles about media, communication and information freedoms.

Global Discourse, 2021

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has spurred extensive governmental reactions worldwide, such as the closure of borders, the lockdown of entire countries, unprecedented economic stimulus packages, and the invention of digital tracking devices that enable authorities to monitor infection rates and the movements of infected individuals. An important question is to what extent the more detailed surveillance of citizens established by health authorities and governments in many countries will outlive the COVID-19 crisis. What does the pandemic tell us about the ease by which governments have revived the timeworn instruments of state sovereignty, such as territorial closure, restrictions of access to public spaces, and the privileging of national populations as the ultimate object of government? Do we witness a certain convergence between countries considered liberal-democratic and authoritarian regimes in terms of the parallel enhancements of citizen surveillance, rule by appeals to fear, and restrictions of our freedom in terms of governments’ use of personal data? In their article, ‘Obedience in times of COVID-19 pandemics: a renewed governmentality of unease?’, Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild and Elif Mendos Kuşkonmaz (2021) offer a series of timely reflections on the above questions.

The Eastern Partnership during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Perspective of the EU and the Partner Countries, "IES Policy Papers" , 2021

The aim of the report is to analyze the epidemic situation in selected Eastern Partnership countries – in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia – at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2020), in particular its political, economic and social consequences. Furthermore, the report is intended to show how the governments of these countries and the European Union manage to counteract and combat the pandemic. The EU’s adopted stance, as well as measures, is part of the ongoing several-year-long debate on the directions of development and the range of evolution of the Eastern Partnership initiative. The issue of the EU’s role in containing the pandemic and its multifaceted effects will undoubtedly be included in the general decisions of the EU leaders regarding the future of this organization.

Bulletin de l'Institut etnographique, 2021

This article attempts to demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic provided possibilities for numerous (non)democratic governments to impose new restrictions on civil liberties, persecute opponents, limit protests and introduce new mass surveillance techniques, thus turning a devastating biological virus into a damaging political virus that has markedly eroded the overall state of freedom in the world in just a few months. In countries considered non-democratic, but also in so-called democratic ones, the restriction of freedoms is justified in the name of preservation of mere biological life (zo?). This new historical event unveils the fact that the crisis has not been handled using democratic means, even in democratic states, but rather by means they have in common with all states, including the most authoritarian ones: by using tracking technologies, without any due process or control by intermediary bodies, by taking decisions by a few, and by using the urgency of the situation in o...

Panamerican journal of trauma, critical care and emergency surgery, 2020

There are extreme situations in human history, such as the current one of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic, where governments must take extraordinary measures. Although the initial intent would be the noble goal of protecting the health of people, these measures could also be used for other purposes that have nothing to do with the original plan.

GMFUS Transatlantic Take, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is having widespread repercussions across Europe. One of them is governments adopting extraordinary emergency measures and imposing restrictions on the freedoms of citizens in order to prevent the collapse of their healthcare systems. In Central and Eastern Europe, where several countries have been backsliding in terms of democracy and rule of law for some time, the crisis is giving an opportunity to governments to increase their powers and restrict civil rights to a dangerous degree. Looking back, the accelerating deviation of countries in the region from European values and the European democratic mainstream over the past decade was largely made possible by the exclusive focus of EU stakeholders on saving the euro between 2008 and 2015, when the negative trends could have been easily halted at an early stage. The same mistake should not be repeated in the coronavirus crisis. At the same time, the United States has neglected the region in recent years, when it should have been playing a stronger role in shoring up its democracies.

NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, 2020

The authors of this text decided to prepare a short article, with the aim to induce further discussion and to orient ongoing and future research efforts in Central and Eastern Europe but also worldwide. The article uses the method of a multi-country case study as the basis for proposing several critical research (and policy) challenges for our region – but many of them of a world-wide character. Four countries are covered by our thumbnail informative sketches – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and the Slovak Republic. The final part of this article proposes a set of questions suggested by the CEE experience with COVID-19 for future research. Such research will both be necessary and interesting for scholarship and policy in the region, and – as a particularly interesting context and area – helpful, one hopes, for questions and answers globally, concerning the pandemic, as well as public administration and policy as a whole.