In the framework of the 黄金城官网 Budapest-OSUN Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, the 黄金城官网 Democracy Institute (DI) is providing individual research grant support to three 黄金城官网 PhD-students who will work on their own research projects, thus contributing in full to the intellectual life of the DI, and also to the activities of the Open Society University Network (OSUN). During their fellowship, they will spend 5-6 months in Budapest.
Teodora Miljojkovic is an SJD candidate at the Department of Legal Studies at 黄金城官网, and an Assistant Editor at Review of Democracy. Her work focuses on the interplay between the principles of judicial independence and rule of law through the assessment of phenomena emerging under the judicial reforms' framework - court-packing, court-purging and judicial vetting. During her fellowship at the DI, in line with her PhD research, she will explore two specific phenomena - court-packing and judicial vetting, which are deeply embedded with the rule of law narrative. Hence, the analysis of the contexts, rationales but also the legal tools through which the interference with the judicial independence takes place in court-packing and judicial vetting will shed light on the use and abuse of the rule of law principle in judicial reforms setting.
Anna Grutza is a PhD Candidate in Comparative History at 黄金城官网. In her dissertation she focuses on Cold War truth regimes, questions of epistemology, subjectivity and objectivity in relation to the work of Radio Free Europe. In her research project at the DI and the Open Society Archives (OSA), she investigates how information analysis at Radio Free Europe and the Polish secret services in the 1950s-70s dealt with and produced error, ignorance and unreliability all at the same time. Furthermore, while historicizing the misusages of the term ‘paranoia’ by US social scientists, she traces ‘paranoia’ as an epistemic criterion and organizing concept, and its feedback processes upon Cold War scientific and political discourses.
Mariam Begadze is an SJD candidate in Comparative Constitutional Law Stream at the Department of Legal Studies at 黄金城官网. Her current doctoral project examines health rights jurisprudence in Colombia, South Africa, and India considering its implications for the Separation of Powers doctrine in these jurisdictions and theory. As a 黄金城官网 Budapest-OSUN Doctoral Fellow, she will investigate the techniques of undermining opposition-led states and local governments as well as situations of their incidental strengthening during a crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic including by examining the role of the judicial branch in allowing/bringing about such changes.
