Workshop on Public Opinion, Institutions and Representation in the European Union
The purpose of this one-day workshop is to study public opinion in the EU and the way it is represented in the principal EU institutions. The workshop will focus on such issues as the representation of the poor, referendums, voting in the European Parliament, the Commission appointment process, the European Court of Justice’s political constraints, and the implementation of EU laws and legislative politics at the member state level.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Christophe Crombez
Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Christophe Crombez is a political economist who specializes in European Union (EU) politics and business-government relations in Europe. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.
Crombez is Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (since 1999). He teaches Introduction to European Studies and The Future of the EU in Stanford’s International Relations Program, and is responsible for the Minor in European Studies and the Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe.
Furthermore, Crombez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium (since 1994). His teaching responsibilities in Leuven include Political Business Strategy and Applied Game Theory. He is Vice-Chair for Research at the Department for Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation.
Crombez has also held visiting positions at the following universities and research institutes: the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, in Florence, Italy, in Spring 2008; the Department of Political Science at the University of Florence, Italy, in Spring 2004; the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, in Winter 2003; the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, in Spring 1998; the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Summer 1998; the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in Spring 1997; the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in Spring 1996; and Leti University in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Fall 1995.
Crombez obtained a B.A. in Applied Economics, Finance, from KU Leuven in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Business, Political Economics, from Stanford University in 1994.
"That Extra Something": A Reading by Aris Fioretos
Please join the Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and the Department of German Studies for a reading and discussion of The Truth About Sascha Knisch by author Aris Fioretos.
A "biological thriller" set in the
underworlds of Weimar Berlin, Aris Fioretos's The Truth about Sascha
Knisch (Jonathan Cape,
2006; Overlook 2008) deals with the so-called "sexual question," its lures and
seductiveness, dangers and temptations, but also with the shrewd love between
two young people in a Germany at the brink of disaster.
Aris Fioretos studied at Stockholm, Paris, and Yale universities. Since 1991, he
has published over a dozen books - novels, prose poetry, and essays. He has also
edited several academic volumes and translated the works of Paul Auster,
Friedrich Hölderlin, and Vladimir Nabokov into Swedish. A past counsellor of
culture at the Swedish Embassy in Berlin, he is the recipient of several prizes
and awards, most recently from the Swedish Academy, the American Academy in
Berlin, and All Souls College, Oxford. His most recent publication is the essay
collection Das Maß eines Fußes (Hanser Verlag, 2008). In the fall, a new
novel will appear.
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporay Europe, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and Department of German Studies.
Building 260, Room 252 (German Studies Library)
Stanford University
The Religion Gap: Why Europe Dechristianizes and the U.S. Remains True to the Faith
Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit. Previously he was columnist/editorial page editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (1985-2000).
Abroad, his essays and reviews have appeared in: New York Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement, Commentary, New York Times Magazine, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Prospect (London), Commentaire (Paris). Regular contributor to the op-ed pages of Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post; Time and Newsweek.
CISAC Conference Room
Peaceful Coexistence or Iron Curtain? Austria, Neutrality, and Eastern Europe in the Cold War and Détente, 1955-1989
In the history of the Cold War and détente, reference is seldom made to the international relations of the small states. This volume undertakes the task of reassessing comparatively, on the basis of newly declassified sources from Western and formerly Eastern archives, the preconditions and various developments of bilateral relations across the Iron Curtain, between the USSR, Eastern Europe, and neutral but capitalist Austria. While the Soviet attitude saw neutrality as a valuable model for Western Europe and Austria as a showcase for the “peaceful coexistence” between East and West, this small country and its communist neighbors developed their own kind of Ostpolitik long before the bigger political actors had ushered in European détente.
With chapters by: Peter Bachmaier, Klaus Bachmann, Friedrich Bauer, Thomas Fischer, Michael Gehler, Andreas Gémes, David Holloway, Mikolaj Kunicki, Victor McFarland, Wolfgang Mueller, Norman M. Naimark, Hanspeter Neuhold, Anton Pelinka, Michael Portmann, Oliver Rathkolb, Erwin A. Schmidl, David Schriffl, Dieter Stiefel, Günther Stocker, Arnold Suppan, and Paul Ullmann.