We will be joined by Dr Gábor Scheiring, Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at Georgetown University Qatar.  His research explores the political economy and lived experiences of contemporary economic transformations through quantitative, qualitative, and comparative methods. He focuses on how economic shocks create precarity, leading to mental and physical suffering, and how these processes impact democratic stability. 

Dr Scheiring will present the keynote: "Shocks Without Therapy: Deaths of Despair in the U.S. and Eastern Europe". 

The presentation offers a trans-Atlantic comparison of ‘deaths of despair’ in the United States and Eastern Europe’s postsocialist mortality crisis after 1990. Challenging existing explanations that treat these crises as exceptional and rely too heavily on cultural and supply-side factors, the presentation foregrounds the similarities in the harmful effects of economic shocks. Comparing Hungary (strong shock, strong therapy), Russia (strong shock, weak therapy) and the United States (prolonged medium shock, weak therapy), the presentation analyzes how shocks lead to psychosocial stress and harmful health behaviors and how policy therapies might offset the adverse effects. The analysis relies on quantitative and qualitative evidence from the biggest data-gathering project on post-socialist mortality. The health of individuals and democracy are intertwined; people in health-deprived areas often support anti-establishment populists. Thus, designing economic transformations with less shock and more therapy is vital to save lives and safeguard democracy.