ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Ryder

Professor Andrew Ryder is Director of the Institute of Political and International Studies at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. Prior to this he held academic positions at the Corvinus University Budapest and the universities of Bristol and Birmingham.

POSTS BY Andrew Ryder

15 January 2025

How the Destroyers of Academic Freedom Masquerade Themselves as Its Victims

Under the authoritarian leadership of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the government has started a culture war to dismantle the independence of academic institutions, including universities and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, arguing that they represent a threat to their proudly proclaimed illiberal ideology. Ironically, after dismantling academic freedom in the country, Orbán’s administration started to claim that actually the liberals are the ones who, through "cancel culture", threaten academic freedom. Continue reading >>