https://zenodo.org/records/15696097
"
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook is a call to action, resilience, and collective
defence of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting
authoritarianism. It tries to provide guidance to scholars navigating the
growing global trend of democratic backsliding and autocratization, in
particular in the U.S.
To this end, it sets out how autocracies often follow a common playbook, built
around the “3 Ps”: populism, polarization, and post-truth. Leaders present
themselves as voices of “the people” against “corrupt elites”, inflame societal
divisions, and undermine facts to avoid accountability. This leads to a cascade
of dangers for scholarship, including censorship, restrictions on funding and
research collaboration, and even violence. The Trump administration serves as a
contemporary example, with policies that curtail international scientific
cooperation, revoke research grants, and suppress studies related to public
health, climate change and minority issues. Because open inquiry and dissent
are central to science and academia—qualities antithetical to authoritarian
control—academia is often among the first targets of autocrats. To help
scholars resist authoritarian developments, the handbook highlights both
historic and contemporary measures aimed at attacking scholars, their
institutional environments, and their scholarship.
The handbook also sets out a framework for action based on personal risk
level—low, medium, high, or extreme. This is designed to help scholars think
about their own risk and purposefully choose actions in line with it. The
handbook considers tools for enhancing digital safety and highlights the
importance of ongoing documentation, preserving imperilled data, and creating
distributed archives as a defence against erasure. It also calls on scholars to
tell their stories—publicly or anonymously—to inspire others, maintain
accountability and preserve a historical record.
Accompanying the handbook is a living wiki that will continue to incorporate
new developments and provide updates on global efforts by scholars to push back
against authoritarianism and safeguard the democratic foundations that enable
free inquiry."
Via Bonobo.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
