Research Symposium

BIO

Jean-Luc Cruz is a 4th year student at Florida State University who will be graduating in May with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs, and a minor in Humanities. He was a member of the 2025 Global Scholars cohort and obtained funding from the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program to study abroad in Prague, Czechia with FSU’s International Programs in the summer of 2025. He is grateful to Cary Wall and the Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement for supporting his research! Upon graduation, Jean-Luc intends to pursue a master’s degree and go on to work in government, policy, and law!

From Restricted to Revolutionary: The Trajectory of Human Rights Expression in Czechia

Abstract

In the summer of 2025, I conducted Global Scholars research while I participated in a study abroad program in Prague, Czechia through FSU’s International Programs. This 5-week program centered in on human rights, specifically through a course on “International Human Rights” and a special topics course titled “Human Rights Violations and Genocide in 20th Century Europe”. Through this program and these two courses I was able to explore human rights as my community-based interest, particularly how human rights have been expressed throughout Czechia’s history as a Communist nation in the 20th century and a democracy since the early 1990s. On a personal note, I also view human rights as central to building a more just and equitable world for all which also motivated me selecting this topic as my community-based interest. Ultimately, I was trying to answer a research question pertaining to the ways human rights are envisioned and exercised under different forms of governance using two lenses of analysis, political monuments in Prague and the growth of the civil society sector in Czechia. Through observational and interview based research, I found that the increase of human rights expression in Czechia coincided with a substantial decrease in the presence of Communist memorials in the city as well as a significant increase in NGOs and other civil society institutions operating in the city and the country at large.

Keywords: Human Rights, International Affairs, Study Abroad, Communism