Report Published by Students Participating in The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program

 

Each summer, The Europe Center sponsors Stanford undergraduate students to complete internships with partner organizations in Europe. For summer 2016, TEC and the European Security Initiative sponsored two internships with the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia, devoted to developing cutting-edge knowledge and analysis of international security and defense issues. During their time at ICDS, Caitlyn Littlepage and Sarah Manney worked on a project examining the implications of the U.S. presidential election for Transatlantic security relations. Based on this research, Caitlyn and Sarah wrote a policy analysis paper that was subsequently published by ICDS.

Executive Summary
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a maximalist both in political background and campaign rhetoric, is likely to maintain the status quo of U.S. NATO assistance and possibly increase allied presence along NATO’s eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. Surrounded by a team of hawkish foreign policy advisors and partnered with a traditionally pro-NATO Congress, the former Secretary of State should face few obstacles to advancing deterrence and responding decisively in the event of a crisis. In contrast, Republican nominee Donald Trump vacillates between two dangerous extremes: hair-trigger impulsivity and sycophantic flattery of Vladimir Putin. The former is an unfortunate personality quirk with the potential to spark international incidents without warning while the latter is actively encouraged by Trump’s entourage. The candidate and his core team of advisors share deep economic and personal interests in Russia and appear to prioritize the country over established U.S. allies. While Clinton presents NATO’s borders as inviolable, Trump indicates that anything is negotiable, putting the onus on NATO members to prove their worth rather than on Russia to justify its actions. The Kremlin appears to have received the message. When discussing the candidates, the Russian media primarily praises Trump and derides Clinton for their respective security policies likely because Trump’s enables Putin to more easily carry out his aggressive foreign policy objectives while they believe Clinton’s are more likely to tie their hands. For NATO members along the eastern border with Russia, a future with President Clinton is the preferable option. However, as the race is yet to be decided both these states and NATO as an entity must plan for the expected security implications of President Trump.

The full report is available for download on the ICDS website.

For more information about The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe, please visit our website.

Featured Faculty Research: Anna Grzymala-Busse

We would like to introduce you to some of The Europe Center’s faculty affiliates and the projects on which they are working. Our featured faculty member this month is Anna Grzymala-Busse, who is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Anna earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2000 and joined the faculty at Stanford University this year. In her research, Anna is interested in political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Her most recent book, Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy, Anna examines the conditions under which churches are able to exert influence on public policy. Using the cases of Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the United States and Canada, she demonstrates that neither religiosity nor public demand for church influence in the state nor any of several alternative factors can explain why the church exerts strong influence on public policy in Ireland, Poland, and the United States, but not in Italy, Croatia, and Canada. Rather, she finds that churches are able to influence policy when they have direct institutional access. Gaining institutional access, however, requires that national and religious identities are intertwined such that the church is identified with the national interest. Such fusion between national and religious identities occurred where the church came to the defense of the nation, as the Catholic Church did in both Ireland and Poland. Anna won the 2016 Best Book Award for the European Politics and Society Section of the American Political Science Association for Nations under God. Anna is currently working on a project entitled “The Dictator's Curse? Authoritarian Party Collapse and the Nation State,” for which she received a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2015. Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Featured Graduate Student Research: Lindsay Der

We would like to introduce you to some of the graduate students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured graduate student this month is Lindsay Der (Anthropology). Lindsay earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology (Archaeology track) at Stanford University in summer 2016. She is currently working as a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and is a Researcher with the Çatalhöyük Research Project.

Supported by The Europe Center, Lindsay conducted field research at Çatalhöyük in June and July 2016 during which she found evidence that midway through the site's Neolithic period (or, late Stone Age) art featuring animals shifted from predominantly depicting wild animals to depicting domesticated animals, as well as anthropomorphic figurines. Importantly for Lindsay's argument, this sets the scene for the site's later Chalcolithic period (a transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age) during which humans increasingly see animals less like people and more like things. Pictured is one such anthropomorphic figurine (top left) and one quadruped (bottom left), both of which were discovered during Lindsay's time at Çatalhöyük. Lindsay plans to return to Çatalhöyük at least twice in the next couple of years. In her ongoing research, Lindsay intends to build upon the work in her dissertation by examining other sites that pre- and post-date Çatalhöyük, but are stratigraphically related, to further expand understanding of animal symbolism both regionally and chronologically.

For more information about The Europe Center's Graduate Student Grant program, please visit our website.