Teaching democracy in troubled times: University courses on democracy in post-communist countries today

How is democracy taught in higher education programs in post-communist countries – across ex-Soviet countries, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and the Western Balkans? Can patterns in teaching democracy-related content be identified – in consolidated democratic states, in more troubled democracies, in autocratizing states and in clear cases of autocracies? The answers discussed in this paper are the result of mapping the curricula of courses on democracy, democratization, de-democratization, democratic decline, and democratic resilience in over 50 leading universities, both public and private, in over 25 states from these regions. The study, conducted within the frame of "Academics facing Autocracy" Project of the Democracy Institute, CEU, Budapest, delves into the educational landscape of universities, specifically examining how is democracy-related content included in the respective programs in countries from the region with rather diverse political regimes, what scope is given to teaching democracy – both as a concept, but also with regard to studying the processes of democratization and de-democratization, what conceptions of democracy are presented to students, who is allowed to teach such courses – dissidents, regime loyalists, 'neutral' academics?, Is the topic of democratic resilience included, etc. Addressing these questions, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of the varied ways higher education institutions in these regions tackle the challenge of providing students with up-to-date democracy-related content. Lastly, the special case of programs in autocratic/autocratizing regime-sponsored universities is also discussed. The focus of the analysis here is on the attempts by autocratic/autocratizing regimes to colonize the political theory field. They are not just aiming to impose their own ideological frame - 'democratic illiberalism' (Smilova 2021), and turn it into the dominant democracy narrative. They aim even higher - to redefine what doing politics means. Smilova, R., 2021. The ideational core of democratic illiberalism. In Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism (pp. 177-202). Routledge.