Save the Date: Torun Dewan
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Torun Dewan is a political scientist at the London School of Economics. His main research is in political economy and in the formal and empirical analysis of decision making in political parties, legislatures and executives. Amongst other issues he has looked at how cabinets structure the incentives of ministers, how leadership acts as a coordinating focal point, how political parties aggregate dispersed information, and how elections provide incentives for policy experimentation.
This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.
Torun Dewan
London School of Economics
Workshops
In his talk, Moravcsik spoke about the four major crises currently facing the European Union and argued that these crises present less cause for concern than current discourse would suggest. The first crisis is Europe's purported decline in geopolitical power, particularly vis-à-vis China. Contrary to these claims, however, Moravcsik presented evidence indicating that the European Union outstrips China on various measures, including military spending, the number of combat and non-combat forces deployed abroad, number of aircraft carriers, number of allies, relative economic power, civilian foreign economic assistance, and its effective use of non-military intervention. The second crisis is one of Euroscepticism, as exemplified by Brexit. Moravcsik noted that the current British negotiating position largely reflects the status quo. Moreover, he is skeptical that the there will be a domino effect. Specifically, mainstream political parties are unlikely to call for a referendum on the EU, particularly given the results of the British vote, and that the anti-EU parties, even at their most successful, gain too little national political power to successfully hold a referendum. Migration constitutes the third crisis, and Moravcsik argues that this crisis is as serious as it is being portrayed. However, this crisis is unlikely to undermine the entire European project, as there is a clear and effective political solution - closing the border using fences, criminal law, and repatriation agreements. The final crisis is the lack of economic growth. Again, this crisis is exaggerated as both the EU-28 and the Eurozone have had higher per capita growth over the past decade than has the U.S. or Japan. However, that growth has been uneven across the EU member states and has been either stagnant or negative in countries such as Portugal and Greece. Moravcsik's ultimate take away was that in order to undo the European Union, a crisis must be serious and lacking a clear policy solution, and none of the four crises currently facing the EU meet both of these criteria.
In his research, Justin is interested in 19th and 20th century British and American literature, with a focus on sound studies, poetics, Victorianism, transatlantic modernism, periodicals, technology, and urbanization. In his dissertation Justin examines sound technology and poetry in Britain and America from 1816 to 1914. In one of his dissertation chapters, Justin focuses on the work of the little-known Irish poet, James Henry. Supported by The Europe Center, Justin traveled to Dublin in October 2016 in order to examine the only known repository of Henry's manuscripts, which is housed in the Trinity College archives. In addition to his work in the archives, Justin was able to meet with Emeritus Professor John Richmond, now in his nineties and housebound, who wrote the first Henry biography in 1976. His book is now extremely rare and prohibitively expensive, but he generously gave Justin a copy, which will be of great value for his continuing research. In addition to his work towards the chapter on Henry, Justin was able to advance the research for various other chapters of his dissertation by meeting with other scholars and visiting sites of historical importance. Justin plans to return to Trinity in order to finish cataloging Henry's papers.
Dirk is a historian who is interested in 20th century European history, Holocaust and Jewish studies, cultures and politics of memory, and intellectual and migration history. His current research focuses on developing an inclusive narrative of post-war Austrian history, one that reflects the current plurality and diversity of Austrian society. In order to do so, Dirk will be working primarily on two projects during his time at The Europe Center. In the first project, he is examining the so-called "guest worker“ migration to Austria during the 1960s and 1970s. Because labor migration was viewed as temporary, it somehow remained a blank spot in narratives of post-war Austrian history. But in fact, it has had a lasting effect on Austrian society. The migrants remain nonetheless invisible and have no voice in the discourse on the national history. Dirk seeks to uncover greater information and new sources in order to provide a more complete and multiperspective portrayal of contemporary Austrian history as both a European and global transnational history. In the second project, Dirk seeks to understand how museums can be used to present an inclusive historical narrative to the public. He will lead a group of Austrian museum curators and museologists on a tour of the historical museums in Washington, D.C. - including the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture - in order to observe how the U.S. presents the history of both minority and marginalized groups. As a member of the Advisory Board for the planned House of Austrian History in Vienna, Dirk intends for this work to facilitate a compelling and inclusive presentation of Austrian history. Please join us in welcoming Dirk to Stanford.
