HAIT-colloquium
Autocratization and Academic Freedom

In recent years, academic freedom has faced intensifying threats across political regimes, while the global wave of autocratization continues unabated. This talk explores the relationship between academic freedom and autocratization, highlighting how attacks on universities, scholars, and knowledge production are not merely side effects of democratic decline but often constitute a central and strategic component of it. Introducing the Academic Freedom Index and its methodological foundations, the talk examines global trends in academic freedom across both democracies and autocracies. It further considers how contemporary autocratizers deliberately target academic institutions to suppress dissent, control public discourse, and consolidate power. Using insights from the Academic Freedom Index and recent episodes of autocratization, the talk reveals how the erosion of academic freedom functions not only as an early warning signal of democratic decline but also as a distinctive mode of autocratization.

Dr. Angelo Panaro is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), where he collaborates with the V-Dem Institute on the Academic Freedom Index research project. Prior to his current position at FAU, he held postdoctoral appointments at Bielefeld University (2023–2024) and the University of Milan (2021–2023), and he was a visiting fellow at the University of Bremen and the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. From 2019 to 2024, he also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Bologna.His work focuses on contemporary processes of autocratization, with particular emphasis on the decline of academic freedom. In addition, Dr. Panaro’s research interests include the political dynamics of social policy decisions and outcomes within authoritarian regimes, and the global dynamics of socio-economic inequalities. 
Dr. Panaro's research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Democratization, Contemporary Politics, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, Review of Policy Research, and the Italian Political Science Review, among others.He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Scuola Normale Superiore. As of September 2025, he serves as the Coordinator of the Standing Group on Political Regimes within the Italian Political Science Association (SISP).

The lecture is part of the HAIT-colloquium „Under pressure. Attacks on science in democracies and dictatorships“ in in the winter semester 2025/26.

The colloquium takes part in room 110, Tillich-Bau, Helmholtzstraße 6, and via Zoom.

This event is financed by the Saxon State government out of the State budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.