The Covid-19 pandemic poses a grave challenge to democracy and civil society. Authoritarian leaders are taking advantages of the crisis to tighten their political grip by weakening checks and balances, restricting civil liberties, and expanding surveillance — suppressing the civic space. While democracy was already at risk prior to Covid-19, it may be further threatened by a crisis of this magnitude. Rather than doing nothing and expecting a deeper undermining of democracy, we should proceed in a way that protects and revitalizes a free and inclusive society. Civil society has an important role to play in sustaining democratic values, both through its direct actions and by drawing on the experience and knowledge of its leaders and their networks.

As part of its program on Expanding Support for Democratic Governance JCIE brought together a group of civil society leaders for an online discussion on the implications of the pandemic for civil society. The online dialogue featured civil society leaders from Taiwan and Indonesia as speakers, who both gave insights into their governments’ responses to the pandemic and the implications for civil society and discussed the role of civil society will have in safeguarding the future of democracy in Asia in the post-pandemic world.