One needn’t to look far to see how things like undue political influence, state interventions, economic conditions, national borders, and lots more can infringe upon human rights, whose enjoyment thus by no means goes without saying.

For months now, students in Budapest have been protesting undue political influence. Their demand: greater autonomy for their university. Just what is academic autonomy, and what can endanger it?

Excerpt from the public lecture “Does every crisis justify a crisis of human rights? Crisis-related considerations” by Ruth Wodak at the mdw on the occasion of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10/12/2020).

It was even before the Ibiza Affair—that is, under a different Austrian government and political situation—that we first formed the idea for a series of events on populist politics and their critique by scholars and artists.