Items

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  2022-06-18

  Coronavirus: which works better to handle a pandemic – democracy or autocracy?

  This is a news story from the South China Morning Post by Priyanka Shankar. This article is discussing the difference in responses based on forms of government. When it came to handling the pandemic, people from Asian countries where restrictions were much tougher rated a higher rate of satisfaction in government response compared to Latin America and Europe. This was taken from the Democracy Perception Index. According to researcher Fredrick DeVeaux, a leader in conducting this survey, the tight restrictions common in Asian countries are generally accepted because it gets associated with low death rates. The survey does make mention that in countries such as Iran and China, they hid data about the virus from their citizens, affecting their overall response to changes in lockdowns. However, Singapore is also authoritarian, and the prime minister has made an effort to create transparency in what is occurring, so items get hoarded less. Overall, the article claims that the mass mobilization of people and goods under authoritarian regimes fares better than democracies do at creating an effective COVID response.
• 2020-11-07

  You're Fired [PRIVATE -DUPLICATE]

  I worked the polls at Nevitt Forest Elementary during the 59th presidential election. The lines were crowded at 6:00 prior to the polls official opening at 7:00. The energy in the voting room was definitely mixed--some determined, some anxious, and some angry at the previous conditions of Trump administration of 2017-21. Although the energy of the election results are still mixed today still, this meme reflects one of the more amused and joyous reactions of the election turnout. Thus, using one of Trump's infamous lines of his famed tv show Celebrity Apprentice, this meme pokes fun at the importance of public ratings not only in pop culture but in politics as well.
• 
  2020-11-07

  You're Fired

  I worked the polls at Nevitt Forest Elementary during the 59th presidential election. The lines were crowded at 6:00 prior to the polls official opening at 7:00. The energy in the voting room was definitely mixed--some determined, some anxious, and some angry at the previous conditions of Trump administration of 2017-21. Although the energy of the election results are still mixed today still, this meme reflects one of the more amused and joyous reactions of the election turnout. Thus, using one of Trump's infamous lines of his famed tv show Celebrity Apprentice, this meme pokes fun at the importance of public ratings not only in pop culture but in politics as well.
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  2020-10-23

  Social justice as a foundation for democracy and health

  From article: Jennifer Prah Ruger uses the covid-19 pandemic to show the importance of countries implementing a justice framework for health and equality. This article is part of a collection launched at the World Health Summit, 25-27 October 2020, Berlin, Germany. Funding for the articles, including open access fees, was provided by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to the Council on Foreign Relations, support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
• 
  2020-04-08

  "Viktor Orbán is Using the Coronavirus Emergency to Crush Minorities" - Jacobin

  In an article for Jacobin Magazine, Imre Szijarto and Rosa Schwartzburg describe in length how the far-right government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to pass a law to give itself emergency powers over civil society and the other branches of government. These emergency powers, which include the ability to censor journalists, attacks on LGBTQ rights, the power to grant government contracts (to Orban's cronies), and the takeover of art institutions, represents a blatant power grab that is unprecedented in Europe since the 1930s. Indeed, Orban's emergency power decree has drawn comparisons to figures as varied as Adolf Hitler and Emperor Palpatine (in Hungarian language memes), and the European Union leadership has strongly condemned Orban's decree as akin the "Enabling Act," which was passed by the Nazis in 1933. Orban's autocratic power grab and the democratic backsliding experienced by Hungary were already underway before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has allowed Orban to use a "state of exception" to effectively suspend liberally democracy in Hungary for the foreseeable future.