European political elites seem to be indulging in a degree of scapegoating about the danger from “ChinIndia”, since the roots of European angst really lie, among others, in European difficulties in managing globalization, declining competitiveness, fear of change, and an unsustainable health, pension and social welfare system. The Europeans tends to perceive the Chinese juggernaut as a direct immediate threat to European jobs in some manufacturing sectors whereas India is seen as a latent and potential threat taking away service-sector jobs, though pressures would increase as both move up the value chain.

The European Union’s strategic partnership with China and India is essentially driven by trade and commerce. India has too much of catching up to do with China. India is clearly in the Commonwealth Games league whereas China is in the Olympic Games league.

The rise of China and India represents both challenges and opportunities for Europe. Rising powers like China and India are challenging the European Union. They will be in a position to shape and influence global agendas and decisions to a greater extent than at present. For both, Europe will remain an indispensable partner since it is a vital source of trade, advanced technology and foreign direct investment. China and India do pose challenges for Europe, but they also provide opportunities since their growth contributes to greater growth worldwide, which means more exports, especially to a swelling consumerist middle class, which will make more demands of European goods, technology, and services.

"Eastern Europe" is a concept many political scientists, area studies scholars, and lay people have been using over the years almost by default. But what does "Eastern Europe" mean geo-poltically, culturally, and historically? It is increasingly difficult to define where "Eastern Europe" may or may not be: since the fall of the Soviet Union and the break-up of the Soviet bloc, the term is one that carries a nuance of belonging to the list of losers of globalization, rather than the winners. My contention is that the very notion of "Eastern Europe" is slowly, but surely disappearing. The question that emerges is what are the viable alternatives for talking about and defining this region as it enters into negotiations or joins the EU. What place, if any, does the "East" have in the political agenda of European governments, elites, and the general populace?

Klaus Segbers is Professor of Political Science at Freie Universitat in Berlin. He is the Program Director of the Center for Global Politics and directs a number of the Friei Universitat's innovative graduate studies programs, including East European Studies Online, International Relations Online, German Studies Russia, and Global Politics Summer School China. Segbers conducts research on a range of topics involving contemporary Europe: Germany's foreign relations with Eastern European countries, EU enlargement, the impact of globalization on world cities, elections in Russia, comparative analysis of institutional changes in Russia and China, and an analysis of area studies as practiced in academic settings. Segers is a visiting scholar at the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at Stanford University for Winter 2008.

There is a new cosmopolitanism in the air. The old concept has not simply been rediscovered but reinvented for the global age. Many writers now maintain that cosmopolitanism is no longer a dream, but rather the substance of social reality -- and that it is increasingly the nation state and our particular identities that are figments of our imagination, clung to by our memories. The purpose of this paper is to concretize this argument and demonstrate the distinctive forms that collective memories take in the age of globalization. It studies the transition from national to cosmopolitan memory cultures. Cosmopolitanism refers to a process of internal globalization through which global concerns become part of local experiences of an increasing number of people. Global media representations, among others, create new cosmopolitan memories, providing new epistemological vantage points and emerging moral-political interdependencies. As such, memories of the Holocaust contribute to the creation of a common European cultural memory based on the abstract notion of Human Rights.

Professor Sznaider earned dual B.A. degrees in Sociology and Psychology (1979) and an M.A. in Sociology (1983) from Tel-Aviv University, after which he completed both his M.Phil (Sociology/Philosophy, 1987) and Ph.D (Sociology, 1992) degrees at Columbia University in New York. Professor Sznaider has taught at Hebrew University, Columbia University, the University of Munich, and the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo.

Professor Sznaider has published a diverse array of books, essays, conference papers and monographs, and has edited widely in academic texts and journals in the fields of sociology, psychology, philosophy and human rights. He currently serves as Associate Professor, Head of the Undergraduate Division, and Head of the Teaching Committee at the School of Behavioral Sciences, Tel-Aviv University.

Beyond selecting the new President, the second and final round of the 2007 French Presidential election will raise many questions about the meaning of the results for France, and for the EU and trans-Atlantic relations. This roundtable event is scheduled to follow soon after the election to give the benefit of review. Panelists from wide-ranging disciplines will each comment on what can be learned from the campaigns, the final voting patterns, and prospects for French and Francophone politics, culture, and society.

About the Panelists

Patrick Chamorel has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution since 2005. He is currently based at the Stanford Center in Washington, D.C., and will soon be the Center's Resident Scholar. He has written extensively on U.S. and European politics and U.S.-European relations. As a political scientist, Chamorel has taught and done research on comparative U.S. and European politics on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently focusing on French politics on the eve of the 2007 presidential election.

Margaret Cohen is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization, and director of the Center for the Study of the Novel at Stanford University. She is author of Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution and The Sentimental Education of the Novel. Her research interests involve rethinking the literature and culture of modernity from the vantage point of its waterways. She is currently working on a book concerning how the history and representation of global ocean travel informed the development of the modern novel.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is professor of French and political science at Stanford University and social and political philosophy at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. He is author of The Mechanization of the Mind: On Origins of Cognitive Science and Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality. His current research projects are: the paradoxes of rationality or the classical philosophical problem of the antinomies of Reason at the age of rational choice theory, analytics philosophy, and cognitive science; the ethics of nuclear deterrence and preemptive war; the philosophy of risk and uncertainty; and the philosophical underpinnings and the future of societal and ethical impacts of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science.

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi is professor of French and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She is also director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature and the Undergraduate Studies in French program. She is author of Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Culture, and the Challenge of Globalization and Remembering Africa. Her research interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean; literature, intellectuals, and society; and women writers.

Tyler Stovall is professor of history at University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light and The Rise of the Paris Red Belt. He is coeditor, with Sue Peabody, of The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. He has written numerous articles on French history and has been president of the Western Society for French History. His work on African Americans living in Paris is of special importance to contemporary understanding of both French and American culture.

Sponsored by Stanford University's Forum on Contemporary Europe, History Department, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies