On March 26-27, 2026, the conference Authoritarianism and Violence in Eastern Europe was held in Dresden, organized by the German Association for East European Studies/ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde – DGO (it was the annual conference of this renowned German research institution) in cooperation with the Dresden University of Technology and the Hannah Arendt Institute for the Totalitarianism Studies at the Dresden University of Technology. 

Political scientists, sociologists, historians, psychologists and writers from several European countries addressed the issues of the development and state of democracy and the factors that threatened it in the past and threaten it today (see conference program). 

IVO president Grigorij Mesežnikov participated in the panel discussion entitled How Democracies End: The Transition from Democracy to Autocracy. Julia Simon, a researcher from the Institute of European Studies, University of Bremen, discussed with him. The discussion was moderated by Sebastian Lambertz from DGO. 

The panelists agreed that the risk of losing the democratic characteristics of state structures in countries as diverse as the USA and Slovakia is a real scenario today, given the power practices of the ruling forces. This is a challenge for all democrats and citizens who care about freedom and democracy in their own countries and in the world.