Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

* Cancelled * Seminar with Daniel Stegmueller

-

This workshop talk has been cancelled.

 

Daniel Stegmueller is a Professor of Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences at the Graduate School of Social and Economic Sciences, University of Mannheim. He is  also an associate member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and of CAGE, University of Warwick.

His research lies at the intersection of political economy and political behavior. He studies political preferences and choices in advanced industrialized societies, specifically individuals' preferences for redistribution and redistributive voting. He is interested in how these are shaped by social structure and institutions, but also by basic individual characteristics, such as cognitive and non-cognitive skills.

 

This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Daniel Stegmueller Professor of Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences Speaker University of Mannheim
Lectures

Herlinde Pauer-Studer

0
Distinguished Austrian Chair Professor (2015-2016)
Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy
Professor of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria
kd3b3429_date100105_pfluegl_web.jpg

Herlinde Pauer-Studer is professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna and a 2015-2016 Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at Stanford. Her research interests are in ethics, political philosophy, and legal philosophy.   She has been a Fellow at the J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (1997/98) and a Fulbright Scholar at NYU (Fall 2006). From 2010 to 2015 she held an ERC Advanced Research Grant on the topic of “Distortions of Normativity”.

At Stanford she will teach a course on the connections between legal philosophy and philosophy of action. During her time at Stanford University she will also work on a book about the normative distortions in the National Socialist legal system, focusing on the period 1933-1939. 

Recent publications on this topic are a co-edited collection of original texts by National Socialist legal theorists that appeared 2014 under the title “Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts. Das Rechtsdenken im Nationalsozialismus” with Suhrkamp and a co-authored book with J. David Velleman, The Conscience of a Nazi Judge. The Case of SS-Judge Konrad Morgen (Palgrave Macmillan 2015).

The Europe Center November 2015 Newsletter

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

 

Special Event: The European Security Initiative

Upcoming talk by Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Philip M. Breedlove.

"Europe at the Crossroads"
Date: November 9, 2015 
Time: 12:00PM to 1:30PM 
Location: Koret Taube Conference Center, Room 130 
RSVP by 5:00PM November 5, 2015.

Photo of General Philip M. Breedlove
General Philip M. Breedlove is a four-star general in the United States Air Force and the current Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). In this position, General Breedlove is one of NATO's two strategic commanders and is the head of Allied Command Operations (ACO). General Breedlove became the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe on 13 May 2013. During his visit to Stanford, General Breedlove will discuss Europe's rapidly-evolving geopolitical climate and highlight many of the security challenges for which the United States and NATO must prepare.

General Breedlove has served in the United States Air Force since graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1977. Immediately prior to assuming his current position, General Breedlove served as Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Commander, U.S. Air Forces Africa; Commander Headquarters Allied Air Command, Ramstein; and Director, Joint Air Power Competence Centre, Kalkar Germany. We invite you to visit ourwebsite for additional information about this event.

Featured Faculty Research: Jens Hainmueller

We would like to introduce you to some of the faculty members that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured faculty member this month is Jens Hainmueller, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science.

Jens Hainmueller

Jens earned his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2009 and joined the faculty at Stanford University in 2014. His research interests include statistical methods, immigration, political economy, and political behavior. An example of Jens's research on immigration and migrant integration is his recent co-authored work with Dominik Hangertner at the London School of Economics and Giuseppe Pietrantuono at the University of Zurich, which examined the effect of naturalization on migrant political integration into the host society. Establishing the effects of naturalization on political integration is complicated by an unobservable selection process; a non-random sample of migrants chooses to apply for naturalization and a non-random sample of naturalization applicants is approved. As a result, previous work has neither been able to establish the direction of the relationship between naturalization and poitical integration nor isolate the effect of naturalization on political integration vis-à-vis alternatives. In order to limit the bias induced by this dual-selection process, Jens and his coauthors analyzed data from Switzerland, where some municipalities used referendums to make decisions on naturalization applications. By limiting the sample to those applications that were approved or rejected by only a few votes, the authors were able to establish treatment and control groups that were otherwise equivalent, thereby removing selection bias from their data. Using this unbiased sample, Jens and his coauthors found that naturalization indeed has a positive effect on migrant political integration by increasing political participation, political knowledge, and political efficacy, among others. This research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We invite you to visit our website for additional information about this research.

Publication Details: Hainmueller, Jens, Dominik Hangartner, and Guiseppe Pietrantuono. 2015. "Naturalization Fosters the Long-Term Political Integration of Immigrants." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112(41):12,651-12,656.

Featured Graduate Student Research: Jason Weinreb

We would like to introduce you to some of the students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured student this month is Jason Weinreb (Political Science). Jason is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University.

Jason WeinrebJason is a political economist who is interested in political risk, the politics of public finance, and economic history. His dissertation examines how newly-independent states finance themselves, focusing on former British colonies. Analysis of the London Stock Exchange in the quarter century following World War II reveals a surprising trend: colonial debt bond prices remained remarkably stable throughout decolonization. In his research at the British National Archives in London, funded in part by The Europe Center, Jason found that price stability was an insufficient indicator of investor confidence. Far from reflecting investors unperturbed by the uncertainty of decolonization, Jason's research uncovers evidence that investors were indeed concerned about the effects of independence on their investment. In fact, investor concerns manifested in higher interest rates, fewer colonial debt bond issues, and lower subscription rates relative to earlier periods. His archival research further uncovers factors that explain why colonial debt bond prices fail to reflect investor sentiment. Chief among these was the British government's intervention in the market. Its strategic purchase and holding of colonial debt bonds ensured price stability despite investor concerns.

Featured Event: Taking the Stand - A Film Presentation and Q&A with Survivors of the Holocaust

Firestone, Liska, and RammerstorferPictured: Renée Firestone, Hermine Liska, and Bernhard Rammerstorfer
By: Christof Brandtner and Sebastian Schuster 

This year we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. At the same time, the number of people who can give us a personal account of the cruelties of the Holocaust is dwindling. Together with students from the Stanford Austria Club, The Europe Center hosted two survivors of the Holocaust and witnesses of the Nazi era: Renée Firestone (born in 1924 in today's Ukraine) and Hermine Liska (born 1930 in Austria). Firestone and Liska were introduced by TEC affiliated faculty Prof. Amir Eshel, interviewed by Austrian documentarian Bernhard Rammerstorfer, and answered engaging questions from students and community members in the audience. In their accounts, Firestone and Liska reported on the years leading up to their persecution, highlighted the importance of religion and family for their survival, and pointed out connections between the diaspora of the 1930s and 1940s and the current global refugee crisis. Rammerstorfer also presented his newest film and book project ‘Taking the stand: We have more to say’ which condenses the experience and memories of nine Holocaust survivors in response to 100 questions from high school students around the world.

Recap: Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Visits Stanford

Anders Fogh RasmussenIn his recent visit to Stanford University, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen painted a bleak picture of global politics. The hope of the Arab Spring has been replaced by new authoritarian regimes, civil war, and ISIS. Russia is becoming more internally authoritarian and externally aggressive. According to one measure, global levels of freedom have been in decline for the past nine consecutive years. "It looks", he said, "as if a Pandora's box of religious, ethnic, and political strife has been opened, and many nations have plunged into chaos and extremism." According to Rasmussen, successfully navigating these global challenges requires a concerted effort among liberal democratic states, spearheaded by American leadership. In order to create a strong global community of liberal democracies, he advocated strengthening the Transatlantic alliance. In addition to the existing military alliance forged through NATO, he proposed the creation of a Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) and a Transatlantic peoples program, which would foster educational, scientific, and cultural exchanges among the partner states. More than 150 people attended the talk, which was held on September 25. To watch Rasmussen's talk in full, please visit our website.

Fall 2015 Graduate Student Grant Competition Winners Announced

Please join us in congratulating the winners of The Europe Center Fall 2015 Graduate Student Grant Competition: 

  • Elena Dancu, Comparative Literature, "From Vienna to Rio de Janeiro: Stefan Zweig and a World in Ruins."
  • Mathilde Emeriau, Political Science, "Discrimination and Integration of Asylum Seekers in France."
  • William Parmer, Philosophy, "The Art of Cruelty."
  • Rebecca Perlman, Political Science, "The Politics of Protection: Health and Safety Regulation in a Globalized Marketplace."
  • Nicola Pierri, Economics, "Credit Constraints and Firms' Productivity: Evidence from the Italian Economy."
  • Jens Pohlmann, German Studies, "Capitalizing on the Avant-Garde? An Analysis of Adversarial Authors’ Marketing Strategies in the Second Half of the 20th Century."
  • Beata Szymkow, History, "Nationalisms Interacting, L'viv 1890-1914."
  • Alice Underwood, Comparative Literature, "The Comrade's Deviant Body: Myth, Citizenship, and Socialist Decay in the Pre-Perestroika Soviet Union."
  • Ashley Walters, History, "The Evolution of a Modern Jewish Legal Defense Against Anti-Semitism in Late Imperial Russia ."
  • Jason Weinreb, Political Science, "Decolonization's Money Doctor: The Bank of England and Commonwealth Central Banks, 1955 - 1970."
  • Seth Werfel, Political Science, "Representation as Intermediation."
  • Duygu Yildirim, History, "Historicizing Nature: Approaches to The Natural History of Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean."
Please visit our website for more information about our Graduate Student Grant program.

The Europe Center Sponsored Events

November 5, 2015 
6:30PM - 9:30PM 
Romanian Film Festival (Stanford, Day 1) 
"Travelling Shorts:Families Beyond Boundaries" 
East Asia Library, Room 224, Lathrop Library Building 
Please visit our website for additional information.

November 8, 2015 
1:00PM - 8:45PM 
Romanian Film Festival (Stanford, Day 2) 
"Travelling Shorts:Families Beyond Boundaries" 
Cubberley Auditorium 
Please visit our website for additional information.

November 9, 2015 
12:00PM - 1:15PM Mart Kuldkepp, Scandinavian Studies, University College London 
"Russian deserters to Sweden in World War I" 
Reuben Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall East 
Open to Stanford affiliates only. 
RSVP requested
This seminar is organized by the Center for Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies and co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

European Security Initiative Events

November 9, 2015 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
General Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander, US European Command, NATO 
"Europe at the Crossroads" 
Koret-Taube Conference Center, Room 130, Gunn-SIERP Building 
RSVP by 5:00PM November 5, 2015. 

November 10, 2015 
5:30PM - 7:00PM 
Lilia Shevtsova, Non-Resident Fellow, Brookings Institution and Associate Fellow Russia-Eurasia Program, Chatham House - The Royal Institute of International Affairs 
"Russia as a Global Challenge" 
Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall 
RSVP requested 

Save the Date: January 5, 2016 
Sergei Guriev, Professor of Economics, New Economic School, Moscow and Visiting Professor of Economics, Sciences Po, Paris 

Other Campus Events of Interest

November 16, 2015 
6:30PM - 8:15PM 
"In the Crosswinds" (2014) Film Screening 
Cubberley Auditorium, Cubberley Education Library 
RSVP requested 
For more information, please visit the event website.

We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.

 

Hero Image
stanford events logo
All News button
1

Heritage Bureaucracies: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (Day 1)

-

heritage bureaucracies

This conference aims to further our understanding of the institutional cultures, funding schemes and power structures underlying transnational institutions, with a particular focus on heritage bureaucracies. We bring together scholars working at the intersection of archaeology, anthropology, sociology and law to offer a broader understanding of the intricacies of multilateral institutions and global civic society in shaping contemporary heritage governance. Speakers will provide ethnographic perspectives on the study of international organizations, such as the UN and EU, in an effort to show the entanglement of political and technical decision-making.

A 2-day international conference organized by Claudia Liuzza and Gertjan Plets.

Speakers:

Brigitta Hauser-Shäublin (Institute of Ethnology, Göttingen University)
Ellen Hertz (Institute of Ethnology, University of Neuchâtel)
Miyako Inoue (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)
Claudia Liuzza (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)
Brigit Müller (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
Elisabeth Niklason (Department of Archeaology, Stockholm University)
Gertjan Plets (Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University)
Cris Shore (Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland)
Ana Vrdoljak (Department of Law, University of Technology, Sydney)

Co-sponsored by Stanford Archaeology Center, Cantor Arts Center, Department of Anthropology, Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Stanford Humanities Center, The Europe Center, France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, The Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Contact: heritagebur@gmail.com

Download pdf
Download pdf

Stanford Archaeology Center (BLDG 500)
488 Escondido Mall
Stanford University

Workshops

On Gun Laws, We Must Get the History Right

Paragraphs

As restrictions on the right to carry guns in public are challenged in American courts, Stanford historian Priya Satia argues that a rigorous analysis of British history and law (as it is invoked by both sides) supports the right of governments to regulate gun ownership and use in the October 21, 2015 edition of Slate.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Slate
Authors
Priya Satia
External URL

Travelling Shots: Families Beyond Boundaries (Stanford, Day 2)

-

The 5th annual Romanian Film Festival, themed "Travelling Shots: Families Beyond Boundaries," will be held on different dates at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University starting on Nov. 5th and ending on Nov. 13th. 

Stanford University will host the festival on November 5th and November 8th.

 

Sunday, November 8, 2015:

  • 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm CHILD’S POSE by Calin Peter Netzer, drama, Romania, 2013
  • 3:15 pm – 4:45 pm WAITING FOR AUGUST by Teodora Ana Mihai, documentary, Belgium, 2014
  • 4:45 pm – 5:15 pm Q&A with director Teodora Ana Mihai
  • 5:30 pm – 6:15 pm Panel: “TRAVELLING SHOTS: FAMILIES BEYOND BOUNDARIES”
  • 6:30  pm – 8:15 pm Q.E.D. by Andrei Gruzsniczki, drama, Romania, 2013
  • 8:15 pm – 8:45 pm 
Q&A with director Andrei Gruzsniczki

For the complete list of other festival dates, times, locations and films, please visit https://rofilmfestival.wordpress.com/program/

 

Sponsored by Stanford's Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies  (CREEES), and the Special Language Program (SLP), and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley (ISEEES) and the Department of Cinema at San Francisco State University. 

Co-sponsored by Stanford's The Europe Center,  Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Stanford University Libraries and UC Los Angeles' Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, Center for European and Eurasian Studies, and the Romanian Student Club, and the “Nicolae Tonitza” High School, Bucharest, Romania, and Fundatia Semn, Romania.

Cubberley Auditorium
School of Education Building
485 Lasuen Mall
Stanford University

Film Screenings
Date Label

Understanding Russia's New Tsar: a lecture by Steven Lee Myers

-

This event is now full.  Please contact khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not the cipher he is sometimes thought to be. His early life, his career in intelligence, and his early service in the newly democratic St. Petersburg -- explain the policies now on display at home and increasingly abroad. Putin has evolved as the country has, becoming the most consequential leader of any country in the world. Although he is often portrayed as an enigma or as caricature, it is essential to understand the characteristics, events and goals that motivate him.  

Steven Lee Myers has worked at The New York Times for twenty-six years, seven of them in Russia during the period when Putin consolidated his power. He spent two years as bureau chief in Baghdad, covering the winding down of the American war in Iraq, and now covers national security issues. He lives in Washington, D.C.

 

 

 

Steven Lee Myers Diplomatic Correspondent, Washington Bureau, The New York Times
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

New study links immigrant naturalization to long-term political integration

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs


 

One of the key policy debates in Europe centers on how best to integrate immigrants. The issue is particularly salient in Switzerland where immigrants make up almost 25% of the population. New research from scholars at Stanford and the University of Zurich demonstrates that naturalization substantially improves the political integration of immigrants. 

Jens Hainmueller, faculty affiliate of The Europe Center and co-director of the Immigration and Integration Policy Lab, along with his co-authors Dominik Hangartner and Giuseppe Pietrantuono, use an innovative research strategy to show that naturalization serves as a catalyst for integration. 

Between 1970 and 2003 residents decided on naturalization applications in secret ballot referendumsin some Swiss municipalities. The researchers compare immigrants who just barely won a referendum with those that just barely lost, and the resulting natural experiment provides a treatment and control group that are almost identical. 

"In some cases, the difference between them was merely a few votes, which turned 49% into 51%. It was down to luck whether people received Swiss citizenship or not," says Professor Hainmueller. 

And because the researchers were able to survey immigrants 15 years after their naturalization decisions, the study provides one of the first unbiased estimates of the causal impact of naturalization on the long-term integration of immigrants. 

In Switzerland, where immigrants must wait twelve years to apply for citizenship, the study suggests that reducing this waiting period could improve immigrant integration and positively impact Swiss society. 

The full article is located on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website.

A recent news article on this research can be found in the October 22, 2015 Stanford Report

All News button
1

Martina Kaller

0
Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, 2024
Professor of Global History, University of Vienna
Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at The Europe Center, 2015-2016
martina_kaller_1.png

Martina Kaller is a philosopher and historian with a clear professional background in global history and a main focus on the Global South. She studied in Vienna, Berlin and at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM). She earned her Ph.D in epistemology of history from University of Vienna and did her postdoctoral thesis in modern history there as well. Her main research focus is on global food history and global studies of food.

At University of Vienna she co-directs the EU funded Master Erasmus Mundus-program, called “Global Studies—A European Perspective.” A consortium conformed by global studies specialists from the London School of Economics (UK), the University of Leipzig (Germany), Roskilde University (Denmark), the Willy Brand Center at University of Wroclaw (Poland), and at University of Vienna, proved that a joint studies program with incoming students from whole over the world works and equally turned greatly attractive for European students.

Her teaching philosophy is guided by a firm belief in the freedom of inquiry, encouraging students to discover and rigorously research the questions that emerge from their own interests, while applying stringent methodological standards. She welcomes difference, dialogue and respect among diverse and divergent points of view. Her courses are characterized by mutual respect, a sense of responsibility and reliability.

 

Hide publication sections
Off

Art and Protest in Putin's Russia

-

The Pussy Riot protest, and the subsequent heavy handed treatment of the protestors, grabbed the headlines, but this was not an isolated instance of art being noticeably critical of the regime. As this book, based on extensive original research, shows, there has been gradually emerging over recent decades a significant counter-culture in the art world which satirises and ridicules the regime and the values it represents, at the same time putting forward, through art, alternative values. The book traces the development of art and protest in recent decades, discusses how art of this kind engages in political and social protest, and provides many illustrations as examples of art as protest. The book concludes by discussing how important art has been in facilitating new social values and in prompting political protests.


Lena Jonson is Associate Research Fellow at UI. Her research currently focuses on Russian domestic politics and issues of political and societal change (modernisation) as well as the contemporary role of culture and its standing in Russia.

Lena Jonson has published several articles and works examining Russian society and politics (mainly foreign and security policy), Russia's relations with Europe and Russian relations with the former Soviet territories. She has also published widely on Central Asia, and on Tajikistan in particular. 

Lena Jonson is one of the founders of the network "Sällskapet för studier av Ryssland, Central-och Östeuropa samt Centralasien" (1997) and was its first chairperson. She has been a guest researcher at George Washington University and the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Centre, as well as a scholarship recipient at the universities of (then) Leningrad and Moscow. From 2005-2009, she served as Cultural Attaché at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. In 2002, she worked as a Political Officer at the OSCE-office i Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In 1997-1998, she was a Senior Researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

Sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Lena Jonson Associate Research Fellow Speaker Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI)
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series
Subscribe to Society