Stanford University

Scripting Revolutions

Note:  The Nov. 3rd opening lecture and reception is now full. We are unable to accept further RSVPs.

This conference will look at modern revolution as a historical script invented in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and then elaborated and improvised upon in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather than asking which is the first modern revolution, or what stages all revolutions may (have to) go through, we will examine revolution as a way of defining and acting upon a particular situation, a narrative frame that political actors explicitly adopted and extended as giving meaning to their goals and strategic choices. To call oneself a revolutionary after the eighteenth century, in other words (or a counter-revolutionary too, for that matter), was to embrace a genealogy and script for action that could be changed or improvised upon, but was necessarily accepted before it could be adjusted or extended in a new context. The aim of the conference will be to see the extent to which modern revolutions can be analyzed and interpreted in this way as so many variations on a common theme. From this perspective, "scripting revolution" would also be about modes of historical writing and narration.

Co-sponsored by the School of Humanities & Sciences, the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, the Department of History, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the France-Stanford Center

Note:  An RSVP is required to attend the Nov. 3rd opening lecture only.  An RSVP is not required to attend the conference panels on Nov. 4th and Nov. 5th

November 3rd: Bender Room, Green Library (THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL)

November 4th and 5th: Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center

Caroline Winterer Commentator Stanford University
Pierre Serna Keynote Speaker IHRF/Sorbonne
J.P. Daughton Moderator Stanford University
Tim Harris Panelist Brown University
David Como Panelist Stanford University
Jack Rakove Panelist Stanford University
David Armitage Panelist Harvard University
Katherine McDonough Moderator Stanford University
Keith Baker Panelist Stanford University
Joseph Zizek Panelist University of Auckland

Dan Edelstein

102 Pigott Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 724-9881
0
William H Bonsall Professor of French
Professor, by courtesy, of History and of Political Science
Edelstein.jpg PhD

Dan Edelstein works primarily on eighteenth-century France, which also serves as a convenient launching pad for raids into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the early modern period. His first book, The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), examines how liberal natural right theories, classical republicanism, and the myth of the golden age became fused in eighteenth-century political culture, only to emerge as a violent ideology during the Terror. This book won the 2009 Oscar Kenshur Book Prize. He recently published a second book entitled The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), which explores how the idea of an Enlightenment emerged in French academic circles around the 1720's. He is currently working on two book projects: first, on the concept of "counter-mythologies" during the Enlightenment and in the aftermath of the French Revolution; and second, on the "myth of the Revolution."

With J.P. Daughton, Edelstein co-directs theFrench Culture Workshop at the Stanford Humanities Center, and with Paula Findlen, is a principal investigator for a project called "Mapping the Republic of Letters," which received a three-year Presidential Fund for Innovation in the Humanities grant, and a "Digging into Data" grant from the NEH (read more about the project).He is a founding editor of Republics of Letters, where he also contributes to the Editors' blog.

Edelstein's research was featured in The Europe Center January 2018 Newsletter.

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Hide publication sections
Off
Dan Edelstein Panelist Stanford University
David A. Bell Commentator Princeton University
Kelly Summers Moderator Stanford University
Carla Hesse Panelist UC Berkeley
Guillaume Mazeau Panelist IHRF/Sorbonne
Mary Ashburn Miller Commentator Reed College
Derek Vanderpool Moderator Stanford University
Gareth Stedman Jones Panelist Queen Mary, University of London
Dominica Chang Panelist Lawrence University
Kent Wright Commentator Arizona State University

Nancy Kollmann

History Department
Bldg 200, Room 311
Stanford, CA 94305-2024

(650) 723-9475 (650) 725-0597
0
William H. Bonsall Professor in History
Professor of History
2017_july_nancy_drottningholm_-_nancy_kollmann.jpg PhD

I became interested in Russia at the height of the Cold War and initially studied Russia and Russian with an eye to the foreign service. History lured me way, especially after spending a junior semester at Leningrad State University in 1970 and having the chance to travel around the Soviet Union a bit. In graduate research and since coming to Stanford in 1982, I have focused on the early modern period (from the fourteenth century through the eighteenth). In almost all my work I have been explored the question of how politics worked in an autocracy. Theoretically I am interested in how early modern states, particularly empires, tried to create, at best, social cohesion and, at least, stability, by ritual, ideology, law and the measured use of violence. My early research focused on structures of power at the Kremlin court and the influence of kinship and marriage in politics and on social values from Muscovy to the Enlightenment (Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System 1987); these themes encouraged my abiding interest in the roles of women in political ideology and practice. I have written two books on legal culture, one on disputes over honor (By Honor Bound 1999) and one on the practice of the criminal law (Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia 2012). Here I’ve contrasted the letter of the law with the workings of local courts, how people used the law, how judges and other officials played roles in the system, how the law was written and interpreted. In all this I’ve tried to place Russia in a comparative context where appropriate, trying to break down clichés of Russia being fundamentally different from European history or unknowable.

My current work goes in several directions. One is a turn to the visual -- I have written several articles on the production and use in Russia of icons, frescos and miniatures as a medium for political communication. I am now finishing up a project on images of Russia produced by foreign engravers in early print publications and maps. The tension in these images between stock tropes of the engraver's trade and eye-witness information, is one fascinating aspect; another is the challenge to assess the impact of text and image on the reader. All in all, I have found that most illustrated works about Russia present a more nuanced understanding than the image of “despotism” that has caught a lot of scholarly attention. Finally, I am interested in how Russia functioned as an empire. I recently published a synthetic history (The Russian Empire 1450-1801 2017) of Russia as a “Eurasian politics of different empire,” and I plan to follow up this theme and return to the practice of the law by studying the implementation of Catherine II’s judicial reforms (1775) in the non-Russian provinces.

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Nancy Kollmann Moderator Stanford University
Lynn Patyk Panelist Dartmouth College
Claudia Verhoeven Panelist Cornell University

Amir Weiner

Building 200, Room 336
Stanford, CA 94305-2024

(650) 723-3527 (650) 725-0597
0
Associate Professor of History
amir_weiner.jpg PhD

Amir Weiner's research concerns Soviet history with an emphasis on the interaction between totalitarian politics, ideology, nationality, and society. He is the author of Making Sense of War, Landscaping the Human Garden and numerous articles and edited volumes on the impact of World War II on the Soviet polity, the social history of WWII and Soviet frontier politics. His forthcoming book, The KGB: Ruthless Sword, Imperfect Shield, will be published by Yale University Press in 2021. He is currently working on a collective autobiography of KGB officers titled Coffee with the KGB: Conversations with Soviet Security Officers. Professor Weiner has taught courses on modern Russian history; the Second World War; Totalitarianism; War and Society in Modern Europe; Modern Ukrainian History; and History and Memory.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
CV
Amir Weiner Panelist Stanford University
Jonathan Beecher Commentator UC Santa Cruz
Tom Mullaney Moderator Stanford University
Alex Cook Panelist UC Berkeley
David Strand Panelist Dickinson College
Elizabeth McGuire Panelist Harvard University
Abbas Milani Panelist Stanford University

Jean-Marie Apostolidès

Department of French and Italian
Pigott Hall, Rm 106
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2010

(650) 723-4460
0
William H. Bonsall Professor of French, Emeritus
Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, Emeritus
1943-2023
apostolides.jpg

Jean-Marie Apostolidès is the William H. Bonsall Professor in French at Stanford University. He has served as chair of the Department of French and Italian and as executive editor of the Stanford French Review and the Stanford Literature Review.

Professor Apostolidès was educated in France, where he received a doctorate in literature and the social sciences. He taught psychology in Canada for seven years and sociology in France for three years. In 1980 he came to the United States, teaching at Harvard and then Stanford, primarily French classical literature (the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) and drama. He is also a playwright, whose work has been staged in Paris, Montreal, and New York.

His literary criticism focuses on the place of artistic production in the French classical age and in modern society. Whether it be the place of court pageantry during the reign of King Louis XIV (Le Roi-Machine, 1981), or the role of theater under the ancien régime (Le Prince Sacrificié, 1985), or even the importance of mass culture in the 1950s (Les Métamorphoses de Tintin, 1984), in each case Professor Apostolidès analyzes a specific cultural product both in its original context and in the context of the contemporary world. His most recent books are Les Tombeaux de Guy Debord in 1999, L'Audience in 2001, Traces, Revers, Ecarts in 2002, Sade in The Abyss in 2003, Héroïsme et victimisation in 2003, Hergé et le mythe du Surenfant in 2004. The tools required for such analysis are borrowed from literary criticism and from the social sciences, particularly psychoanalysis, anthropology, and sociology.

In his books, Professor Apostolidès interprets the works of the past as witnesses of our intellectual and emotional life. His examination of the distant or near past seeks to make us more sensitive to the social changes that are taking place now, in order to improve our understanding of the direction in which contemporary society is moving.

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Jean-Marie Apostolidès Panelist Stanford University
Andrew G. Walder Commentator Stanford University

Edith Sheffer

Department of History 200-120

(650) 724-0074
0
Former Assistant Professor of Modern European History
Former Assistant Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
edith_sheffer_-_1.jpg PhD

Edith Sheffer joined the History Department faculty in 2010, having come to Stanford as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Humanities in 2008.  Her first book, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford University Press, 2011), challenges the moral myth of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War’s central symbol. It reveals how the barrier between East and West did not simply arise overnight from communism in Berlin in 1961, but that a longer, lethal 1,393 kilometer fence had been developing haphazardly between the two Germanys since 1945.

Her current book, Soulless Children of the Reich: Hans Asperger and the Nazi Origins of Autism, investigates Hans Asperger’s creation of the autism diagnosis in Nazi Vienna, examining Nazi psychiatry's emphasis on social spirit and Asperger's involvement in the euthanasia program that murdered disabled children. A related project through Stanford's Spatial History Lab, "Forming Selves: The Creation of Child Psychiatry from Red Vienna to the Third Reich and Abroad," maps the transnational development of child psychiatry as a discipline, tracing linkages among its pioneers in Vienna in the 1930s through their emigration from the Third Reich and establishment of different practices in the 1940s in England and the United States. Sheffer's next book project, Hidden Front: Switzerland and World War Two, tells an in-depth history of a nation whose pivotal role remains unexposed--yet was decisive in the course of the Second World War.

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Edith Sheffer Moderator Stanford University
Lillian Guerra Panelist University of Florida
Silvana Toska Commentator Cornell University
Conferences

Turkey between Religion, Ideology and Politics: An Interview with Professor Roland Benedikter

Authors
News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

In this talk with the leading civil society journal on humanities and social sciences “Mehrnameh”, published in Teheran as one of the few organs of the liberal, democracy-oriented and progressive intellectuals of Iran, Roland Benedikter and Abuzar Baghi cover a wide range of historical and contemporary issues concerning Turkey as an example of Islamic democratization. The interview has been carried out in English and translated autonomously by Abuzar Baghi into Persian (see Persian version).

 

1- Baghi: What is the state of contemporary Turkey, as seen from the interdisciplinary, multi-dimensional viewpoint of the seven-fold approach to the “global systemic shift” in which you specialize[1]? In particular, what is the state of affairs regarding the intricate relationship between Politics and Religion at the Bosporus today?

Benedikter: First of all, there are undoubtedly deep-reaching economic changes that are related to globalisation. There is indeed, as the current “moderate Islamic” government rightly underscores, a noticeable economic and financial growth with constant increases of the GDP of around 5% per year, though its direct benefits seem to be widely confined to the upper and parts of the middle classes. In addition, due to its conservative, domestic-centred and protection-oriented financial system, Turkey has mastered the global financial crisis of 2007-10 relatively well. As scholars like Adem Yekeler of Bilkent University have shown, the Turkish financial system came across a banking crisis in 2001 and was restructured and strongly regulated between 2001-2008, a.o. by strengthening the Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA). This extended reform and regulation period contributed to the recent success of the Turkish banking system in the crisis period between 2007 and 2010. A steady economic and financial progress is undeniable, although the distribution of its outcome remains disputed. Simultaneously, there are ongoing political and ideological changes in today’s Turkey that in my view could result as systemically at least as important as the economic and financial ones. In short, the secular system based on notions inspired by Western enlightenment, modernization and rationalization established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s, which as we know has lain at the very basis of the modern republic of Turkey until the present day, is being increasingly challenged by a variety of religion-oriented or at least religio-phil parties, movements and groups.

2- Baghi: Could you explain this a little bit more in depth?

Benedikter: The global “return of religion” [2] has unfolded a powerful grip upon the political landscape at the Bosporus since the early 1990s. In the past decade, it took on concrete electoral forms not least with the three successive, much impressive victories of the “Justice and Development Party” of Abdullah Gül and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in November 2002, in July 2007 and in June 2011. This has tightened the political spectrum, giving the moderate Islamic party an almost monolithic leadership over the country, and making Erdogan the longest-serving Turkish leader after Atatürk. Particularly the last, probably most influential victory in June 2011 paves the way for the change of constitution envisioned by Gül and Erdogan who want to shift the country from the current parliamentary system to a presidential one. That could lead in the middle and the long run not only to a noticeable further concentration of power, but also to a general de-secularization of state and society. It is no chance that due to its widely unparalleled success in the past decade, Erdogan’s “moderate Islamism” is becoming a role model for Islamist parties throughout the Middle East, including for example Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. That has of course its pros and cons.

3- Baghi: Which ones?

Benedikter: On the one hand, the “Erdogan-Gül model” of Islamo-phil modernization processes is mitigating Islamic parties throughout the Middle East, particularly in the present situation of fundamental openness and deep-reaching transitions. What is interesting on the other hand is that in the framework of this development the general societal atmosphere in Turkey itself is changing. Foremost the educated, Westernized urban populations are perceiving the largely unchallenged supremacy of the governing party and the respective change as regress. This is because the secular state and its laical system are increasingly - and increasingly publicly - challenged in the name of “true democracy” by the religious right. This fact is of course a contradiction in itself.

4- Baghi: Why?

Benedikter: Among those who are currently crying out for a “better democracy” against the keepers of the secular state, i.e. the parliamentary parties, the parliament, the institutions and the military, are - certainly in a leading role - the various Islam-inspired movements. It is important to note that what their representatives usually mean with “better democracy” is not the improvement of the standards regarding pluralism, electoral representation, tutelage of ethnic minorities, tolerance and human rights. It is rather the request for the implementation of a presidential system inclined towards a kind of modern religious popularism: what the majority wants should be carried out. Not by chance international voices like the Economist and the Financial Times have in the past months repeatedly criticized the Turkish government for its authocratic and populistic tendencies.

5- Baghi: What does that mean?

Benedikter: The overall development indicates a slow, but continuous shift from the mindset of secular enlightenment, rationalization and modernization towards the ascent of a moderate religious populism which is being justified by the impressive economic and technological progress. This justification is another one of the many contradictions inbuilt in the current development of Turkey.

6- Baghi: Are there other ideological influences usually poorly or not considered, when we look at this complex, but increasingly important relationship between Politics and Religion in Turkey?

Benedikter: As colleagues like for example M. Şükrü Hanioğlu of Princeton University, Vural Ülkü of Ankara and Mersin Universitesi or Cüneyt Kalpakoglu have convincingly pointed out, the historical interface between politics and religion in Turkey has seldom be analyzed appropriately when it comes to secular religion and to the generally small, but influential non-confessional, but still “essentialist” worldview groups and movements which have tried to combine modern secularism with a kind of progressive and individualistic, experiential “spiritual realism”. These groups adhere to a “third way” that can be located precisely at the interface between the militant creation of secular institutions and of a laical state on the one hand, and the search for a kind of “spiritual realism”, often also branded as “rational spirituality” appropriate to modernity, on the other hand.

7- Baghi: For example?

Benedikter: Among these groups is for example the - highly differentiated - field of Turkish freemasonry. Turkish freemasonry, or to put it in maybe more precise terms: Turkish freemasons have played an important role in shaping the modern history of Turkey in the past two centuries, including the establishment of a secular republic as such. These forces were present probably less as a “movement” in the strict sense, but more as single individuals connected by some basic convictions and aspirations - individuals who were distributed within the different movements of their times: in basically most of them, not only in the emancipative, reformist, liberal and progressive ones. What connected them was their “intermediate” ideology between political progress and religious conservativism: their attempts of reconciling progressive politics with a rational essentialism. Cüneyt Kalpakoglu and I have just recently published a brief historical overview about this still widely under-researched topic. [3] We hope this article can serve as a concise introduction into the issue in order to foster debate on it exactly in a moment when Turkey seems to be shifting in other directions.

8- Baghi: Does that mean that these “third way”[4] groups that in a certain sense were balancing between militant secularism and religious confessionalism have been trying to build bridges between politics and religion on a moderate, progressive and liberal scale, thus shaping important elements of the history of modernity in Turkey?

Benedikter: In principle yes, even though as always the “reality process” - as our grand doyen Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called it as you know - is never as clear and well confined as that. In socio-political processes, you are never able to just and only be the “good guy”. Every reality process in the modern era mixes some basic positive aspirations with their opposite almost always, almost necessarily as it seems. And the latter come into play when ideals hit practical politics and the social sphere. In addition, if you are in politics for a certain period of time (as I was between 1995 and 2003), some things unavoidably go wrong, encounter unforeseen events or even turn into their opposite. The outcome is always a combination between your aspirations and the happenings that are out there. But in principle, what you describe was at least the attempt. It was the idealistic aspiration of parts of the progressive movements from the 19th century onwards, including for instance some members of the so-called “Young Turks” and their revolution in 1908. Certain members of the “Young Turks” certainly had in mind the integration of modernity, secularism and a kind of public idealism in the form of a religion of visibly progressive traits. And some of them were undoubtedly closely tied to freemasonry and the respective ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood, which as we know were at the origins and have remained at the center of the main Western democratization processes.

9- Baghi: Who exactly were the “Young Turks”? Were they reformists? Or were they on the contrary the ones who alienated Turkey from its glorious past, as some conservative scholars assert?

Benedikter: They were certainly reformists in their minds, and in their aspirations. As I said, the reality process can turn things upside down sometimes, and in a certain sense and to a certain extent it did so also with the goals and hopes of the Young Turks. But in principle, the Young Turks were reformers and innovators in a historical moment of transition. Consider that they were in large parts composed of university students, intellectuals and artists, scientists, bureaucrats and administrators, i.e. the educated elites. These elites sensed already before WWI that the epoch of the great trans-cultural empires in Central and South-eastern Europe and in the Middle East was coming to an end, including the Ottoman Empire, and that the era of the modern nation states had begun. Accordingly, they aimed towards the creation of a nation-state including a constitutional system, a liberal economic order and a secular, nationally unified public culture, including one national language. On the other hand, we would certainly have to debate if they reached their goals, and where yes, to which extent, and in which fields exactly. Let us never forget the role of the Young Turks in the genocide of Armenians and Kurds during WWI. Like other movements of their time, the nationalistic fervour drove important parts of the Young Turks into ethnic cleansing and (until then widely unparalleled) crimes against humanity – an enormous, inexpressible contradiction against their own original ideals and goals.

10- Baghi: What were the dominant groups inside the Young Turks? What was their inner organizational structure?

Benedikter: As with many movements in the history of modernity, their inner organization was complex and contradictory, in many ways ambivalent, being disputed by various currents and sub-tendencies. Formally speaking, there was a continuous competition between at least two structural pillars: the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and the Ottoman Freedom Society (OFS). Regarding the ideology, there were strong disputes between the secularist and materialistic forces, the economy-centered liberals and the “third way” tendencies mentioned above. We can probably say that these disputes have never ended; the Young Turks themselves never reached the structural and ideological unity they propagated for the modern nation-state which they envisioned for the future of their country.

11- Baghi: Before the emergence of the Young Turks and before 1908, the Turkish reform process began. This process continued in a way that the education system, the military, the institutions, etc. were in part reconstructed. Within this period, Europe and more generally speaking the West apparently were the main role models for the Young Turks to follow in reforming and reconstructing the socio-political system. The two-fold question resulting from this is: A) Did the reform efforts occur under the pressure of Western powers? Or (B) were they carried out mainly due to the necessities perceived by the convictions of the reformists themselves? In other words: Where did the main motivation of the reform movement come from: was it foreign or domestic?

Benedikter: Both, differing noticeably inside the Young Turks umbrella movement according to the origins and ideological inclinations of the various appertaining groups we mentioned. The influence of the West was particularly strong in the “third way” currents and in the economic liberals. Nevertheless, I don’t think it is possible to say that the reforms were undertaken “under Western pressure”. On the other hand, the Western influence was certainly less present in the radically nationalist groups which were much more interested in establishing a strong, modernized replacement of the Ottoman Empire, a.o. by “cleaning up” its multi-cultural and pluri-ethnic heritage. To put it in very abridged terms, they wanted to create a unified state able to ascent to a new epoch of splendour and influence. Both these tendencies battled each other inside the Young Turks. You have to consider this to understand their inbuilt ambivalences. As it was foreseeable, in times of war, during WWI, the nationalist currents gained supremacy, and this resulted in a kind of humane catastrophe for the movement as a whole, at least seen from the historical retrospective. The roots for the genocides were laid much earlier though, when parts of the Young Turks started to base their ideas of a unified modern nation on certain European notions of race which circulated among parts of the international elites at the end of the 19th century.

12- Baghi: There is a belief among some scholars that in the final phases of the Ottoman Empire, Theodor Herzl met with the Ottoman emperor, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, to get the permission to create a land for the Jewish people. But the Sultan seemingly rejected. Some people reached the conclusion that the Zionist movement tried to take revenge by creating the “Young Turks” movement through its representatives in the Ottoman Empire. They tried to make the empire collapse from within. Is that right?

Benedikter: This is a theory that I am not aware of. I believe that until it is proven by sound historical and socio-political research, it has to be considered as unreliable, and that basically means it has to be considered as wrong. As far as I can see, there is no evidence to backup such claims. As scholars like Hasan Kayali of UCSD have shown by historical in-depth studies, you have so many negative speculations on issues regarding the birth of Israel by misusing the history of Turkey and the Middle East, and by arbitrarily creating connections where there are none. I would completely reject any speculation. I recommend to solely rely upon the facts, and I can see no facts backing these kinds of theories you mentioned.

13- Baghi: Atatürk’s political and ideological heritage has been deeply embedded in the everyday atmosphere of Turkey until today. Until a decade ago, opposition against this heritage faced disadvantage and punishment. I would like to know how the Islamists in Turkey could live in harmony with the heritage of Atatürk?

Benedikter: You probably have to ask them directly to get a well-founded answer. In my view, there are many moderate Islamists in Turkey who recognize the need to keep the features of the modern laical state in effect, even if some of them long for more freedom to manifest their believes in public. My hope is that these moderate currents will prevail within the ongoing religious renaissance in Turkey. And I believe that coexistence is possible, although it will require compromise, and tolerance on all sides involved. My hope is that common sense will prevail. And that in the end, the secular republican system will be defended by the majority of the population, not only by the educated elites. Not least, because this will be a crucial aspect co-decisive for Turkey’s ambitions to modernize, and to join the European Union.

14- Baghi: In recent statements, you describe Turkey as being in the midst of a deep-reaching process of transition; and you describe as the most important issue for its future to activate and empower its “youth” in order to counter-balance the growing influence of traditional religion on the public discourse.[5] Is that a kind of indirect reminiscence towards the “Young Turks” movement?

Benedikter: No, not at all. The “Young Turks” movement belonged to a different era, and it unfolded in completely different historical and socio-political contexts. I wouldn’t compare today’s situation with that of 1908. That said, I believe that it will be a mix of secular and materialistic, economy-driven liberal and “third way” elements together with “non-affiliated” students, intellectuals, artists and members of the civil society (most of them still concentrated in the urban areas) that will be the advocates of the laical republic on the Bosporus in the coming years.

15- Baghi: But again: Could the “Young Turks” in this situation serve as an example for contemporary, progressive reformist movements throughout the region? And if yes: to which extent, and in which fields exactly?

Benedikter: As always with reformist, progress oriented movements of the past, certain aspects may serve as indication, others not. You can’t, and you shouldn’t ever try to repeat history. Every political movement, be it as idealistic, reformist or progressive as it can be, is necessarily ambivalent. So I would prefer to ask your legitimate question slightly differently: Could the republican order of today’s Turkey serve as an example for the surrounding modernizing societies? In my view, the question of the progressive elements of the Turkish civil society serving as an example of a participatory society for its neighbours is as interesting and inspiring as it is disputable.[6] It is interesting and inspiring, because I believe such an example of a “religion-inspired republic” or even “Islamic democracy” is maybe one of the most needed models in our post-9/11-world. It is particularly needed for the transformation towards more liberal societies that is happening throughout the Middle East. But it is also disputable, since Turkey itself is in the midst of a transition of unclear features. I nevertheless am optimistic that the country will exert a positive influence upon the region, hopefully by demonstrating that a moderate religious political influence and a secular, pluralistic state are not completely incompatible.

16- Your outlook on the probable relationship between Politics, Religion and any kind of “intermediate” Ideologies in Turkey to expect for the years ahead?

Benedikter: In my view, the “intermediate” ideologies we talked of may get a unique chance in the coming years. They will get the opportunity to prove their value as an effective, concrete and down-to-earth interface between religion and politics in the 21st century. “Islamic democracy”, “rational spirituality” and a pluralistic society are in principle no opposites. Since we witness the global ascent of “contextual politics”, i.e. of religion, culture, mass psychology, convictions and ideas to become always more influential political factors, those able to build rational and tolerant bridges between the elements will gain in influence. We shouldn’t forget that as long as the moderate religious parties in Turkey are democratically elected, they are legitimated by the people. In turn, these parties shouldn’t forget that they were able to ascent to governmental responsibility by becoming the main beneficiaries of a pluralistic, republican and participatory system dependent on the will of the people.

THE AUTHORS

Abuzar M. H. Baghi, PhD, is Journalist and Editor-in-chief of the International section of Mehrnameh. Journal of the Iranian Civil Society, published as an independent review for the Iranian Civil Society since 2002 in Teheran, Iran. He graduated in political science at Azad University in Tehran in 1995, and has since then been arrested various times by the Iranian authorities because of his efforts to create a non-Western, independent democratic discourse in Iran. He translated several books and many long theoretical articles from English into Persian in the area of human rights for the Islamic Human Rights Commission, a.o. by Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, etc. He is the brother of Emadeddin Baghi, a leading journalist and human rights activist in Iran who has been behind bars for several years. Contact: abuzarbaghi@gmail.com.

Roland Benedikter, Prof. DDDr., is European Foundation Professor of Interdisciplinary Sociology with focus on Contextual Political Analysis and Global Change, in residence at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara, and Research Affiliate / Visiting Scholar at the Europe Center, Stanford University. 2000-2002 Visiting Professor at Mersin Universitesi, Turkey. Authorized websites: http://europe.stanford.edu/people/rolandbenedikter/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Benedikter. Contact: rben@stanford.edu or r.benedikter@orfaleacenter.ucsb.edu.

Published in a translation into Persian in: Mehrnameh. Journal of the Iranian Civil Society. Special Issue: Turkey. Teheran, August 2011.

 


[1] R. Benedikter: What is the“Global Systemic Shift” of our days, and how does it work? A seven-fold approach: System Action theory. In: Critical Globalization Studies, edited by Royal Holloway University London. Forthcoming in 2011.

[2] Cf. R. Benedikter: Politics and Religion. Notes on the Current Relationship between two Societal Fields. In: Berliner Debatte Initial. Zeitschrift für sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskurs. Herausgegeben von der Gesellschaft für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung und Publizistik Berlin. 19. Jahrgang, Heft 4/2008, Berlin 2008, pp. 90-101. (German).

[3] R. Benedikter and C. Kalpakoglu: Freimaurerei in der Türkei (German). Forthcoming in 2011. Reprint in: H. Reinalter (ed.): Lexikon der Freimaurerei. Forthcoming in 2012.

[4] Cf. R. Benedikter: Third Way Movements. In: M. Juergensmeyer, H. Anheier and V. Faessel (ed.s): The SAGE Encyclopedia of Global Studies, New York 2011.

[5] R. Benedikter: On Contemporary Turkey. In: Changing Turkey in A Changing World. Analyzing Turkish Politics and Society within a Global Context. Edited by Royal Holloway University London, http://changingturkey.com/2011/06/16/interview-with-prof-roland-benedikter-ucsb-and-stanford-university/, June 16, 2011.

[6] Cf. R. Benedikter: Turkey as an Example of Democratization for its Neighbours? In: R. Benedikter: Nachhaltige Demokratisierung des Irak? Sozio-kulturelle und demokratiepolitische Perspektiven, Wien 2005, chapter 5, pp. 285-354 (German).

All News button
1

Why Sweden Did Not Build the Bomb: Testing the Swedish Case Against International Relations Theories

-

Why did Sweden choose, in the late 1960s, to abandon its long-standing nuclear weapons plans? A number of historical investigations have analyzed some aspects of this issue, particularly as it related to the public political debate in Sweden and the formulation of the Swedish defense doctrine in the postwar years. Some studies have attempted to explicate, from a more overarching perspective, why Sweden opted not to develop anuclear weapons capability, but these efforts have generally been hampered by heavy dependence on secondary source materials consisting of published English-language works. Taken together, these studies provide a far-from-complete picture of Sweden’s historical nuclear weapons plans. The main reason for this lack of a comprehensive picture has been the paucity of primary sources. Today, however, the end of the cold war and the declassification of large parts of the relevant documentary record, especially concerning the technical preparations for nuclear weapons production, have created the prerequisites for a more penetrating analysis of this important historical issue. The purpose of this presentation is to summarize the research on Sweden’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons based on primary sources. This overarching analysis is then tested against International Relation theories which have sought to explain factors of proliferation and non-proliferation.

Thomas Jonter is Professor in International Relations at the Department of Economic History, Stockholm University. His research is focused on nuclear non-proliferation and energy security. He is also project leader for different educational and research programs in Russia with the aim to initiate academic courses and programs in nuclear non-proliferation at different universities in the regions of Tomsk and Jekaterinburg. These projects are carried out in a cooperation between Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey, United States, and  Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  Professor Jonter is also chair of the ESARDA (European Safeguards and Research Development Association) working group for Training and Knowledge Management. Currently he is a visiting scholar at The Europe Center at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.

 

Audio Synopsis:

First, Professor Jonter explains that Sweden initiated nuclear weapons research in the 1950’s because of the presence of a large uranium supply, ample technological and scientific knowledge, and concerns about self-defense. He cites wide support for nuclear research during that time, including from Prime Minister Tage Erlander, the Defense Ministry, and the military. In 1945 the Swedish National Defense Research Establishment created plans for a nuclear weapons program within a civilian nuclear power program, necessitating high levels of cooperation between military and civilian entities.  Despite pressure from the United States to abandon nuclear research, uranium production began in 1955 along with the construction of two reactors. Eventually, social groups within Sweden protested and a debate emerged within Parliament, resulting in a decision that Sweden would only pursue research related to self-defense against the Soviet Union. Behind the scenes, however, nuclear weapons research carried on covertly for some time. Jonter addresses questions of whether the program was really weapons-based or simply scientific research, how the debates in Sweden were influenced by criticisms at home and abroad, the role of private investors in the Swedish nuclear research program, and the factors that ultimately allowed Sweden to publicly back away from a weapons program.

Professor Jonter then examines implications for the international system by analyzing the Swedish nuclear case in light of several international relations theories. He also considers the argument that "outward looking" states which are active in international trade are less likely to develop nuclear weapons. Jonter asserts that research on this topic would benefit from more historical analysis of primary resources, although the secret nature of nuclear records make them difficult to access.

 A question and answer period following the presentation addressed such issues as: How does the Swedish case study compare with the Danish case? Did the Swedish government tie its hands with a public decision not to pursue weapons development? Is there evidence of Sweden having to balance nuclear weapons research with other military expenses?  Why did the government switch from high levels of secrecy about the nuclear program decisions to a policy of openness and public discussion?

Download pdf

CISAC Conference Room

Thomas Jonter

Department of Economic History
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden

0
Professor of International Relations, Department of History, Stockholm University
Thomas2.jpg PhD

Thomas Jonter is Professor in International Relations at the Department of Economic History, Stockholm University. His research is focused on nuclear non-proliferation and energy security. He is also project leader for different educational and research programs in Russia with the aim to initiate academic courses and programs in nuclear non-proliferation at different universities in the regions of Tomsk and Jekaterinburg. These projects are carried out in a cooperation between Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey, United States, and  Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  Professor Jonter is also chair of the ESARDA (European Safeguards and Research Development Association) working group for Training and Knowledge Management. Currently he is a visiting scholar at The Europe Center at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.

Anna Lindh Fellow, The Europe Center
Thomas Jonter Speaker
Seminars

When will European groups send flotillas to help people of North Korea and Syria?

Paragraphs

Freedom House’s Freedom in the World survey showcases an alarming decline in freedom, democracy and respect for human rights around the world for a fifth consecutive year. Only 60% of the world’s 194 countries and 14 territories can be defined as democracies with respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.

While universal human rights are trampled upon in dictatorships as North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya and China, the European foreign policy debate is dominated by Israel’s blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza and the US-led war against international terrorism.

Flotillas to Gaza receive massive publicity in the European press, despite the fact that the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is open and the UN secretary general calling the campaign "an unnecessary provocation."

No flotillas are sailing towards Damascus and Teheran, despite the fact that Amnesty reported some 1,400 deaths in the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, as well as rape and torture of children. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed 175 people this year, including women, children and homosexuals by public hanging and stoning.

Calls for a boycott of China are rarely issued in the European debate, although the communist regime in Beijing occupies Tibet and accounts for two thirds of the world’s executions. No fly-ins head to Atatürk International Airport, despite the fact that Turkey illegally occupies Northern Cyprus and commits systematic human rights violations in the Kurdish territories.

Elsewhere, very few European writers and cultural figures condemn the Castro regime, despite the fact that Cuba has forced 18 dissident journalists into exile this year.

The one-sidedness of the European foreign policy debate is clearly exemplified in the case of North Korea, one of the world’s worst human rights abusers according to Amnesty. A recently publicized UN report charged that some 3.5 million of the country’s 24 million inhabitants suffer from acute food shortages as result of the totalitarian regime’s policies.

Self-styled peace activists
Pyongyang has established a system of prison camps throughout the country where 200,000 dissidents are subjected to systematic torture and starvation. Forced labor guarantees that no detainees are strong enough to rebel; attempts to escape are punished with torture and execution.

Very few European campaigns are initiated in support of the North Korean people. This selective engagement can be explained by the fact that countries like North Korea don’t generate widespread media coverage or political debate. More significantly, the problems don’t fit into the dominant European foreign policy discourse, which discriminates between moral principles in the name of biased political agendas.

If the Gaza flotilla was motivated by altruistic humanism, we would have seen some boats setting sail for Benghazi, loaded with medicine and humanitarian aid. Ships with oppositional literature and laptops would have done wonders for the democratic opposition in Havana and Tehran. A universal commitment to the promotion of human rights would have prompted European public engagement against the mass starvation and torture in North Korea.

Next time self-styled European human rights and peace activists in Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland or Spain issue declarations in the name of humanism while condemning the only democracy in the Middle East, you should think twice; specifically when these statements are motivated by a questionable commitment to the promotion of democracy and human rights in all countries of the world.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Ynetnews.com
Authors
Daniel Schatz
External URL

Announcing the Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The Europe Center at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and The Stanford Center for Innovation in Learning announce the Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund in memory of Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom to be used to support fellowships and activities designed to support Stanford-Sweden international exchange.

The Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund is dedicated to build upon and grow the relationship originally fostered by Stig Hagstrom between Stanford University and Sweden in academic and cultural aspects by funding official speakers, students, and events to the benefit of the University and Swedish society.

Gifts in support of this fund will be used for the provision of cross-cultural opportunities for collaboration, both academic and social (for example, coffee afternoons, film nights, speaker events).

Contact and donor information: Those wishing to donate to the Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund may use the contact below.

Checks, made payable to Stanford University--in Memory of Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom, may be sent to:

Neil Penick
Hagstrom Memorial Fund
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

Email: npenick@stanford.edu
Tel: (650) 723-8681

Details on the programming in the Stanford-Sweden relationship may be found below.

Hero Image
ehall
All News button
1

While world seeks to defeat terror, Stockholm welcomes notorious terrorist into country

Paragraphs

The number one topic around the globe has been the world after Bin Laden and the appropriate ways for democracies to dispose of terrorists. From Washington, to Brussels, to Tel Aviv and Islamabad, pundits and average citizens have weighed in on the debate.

Sweden’s contribution to the question of how to deal with terrorism was to provide a welcome mat - in the form of a taxpayer-funded lecture tour - for the notorious Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) airplane hijacker, Leila Khaled.

Khaled literally burst onto the world scene in 1969 when she boarded TWA’s flight 840 in Rome with hand grenades taped around her waist. She stormed the cockpit, declaring she belonged to the Che Guevara Commando Unit of the Marxist-Leninist PFLP. Terrified passengers were held hostage and only released after Israel agreed to free Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. One year later, she masterminded a new brutal hijacking after undergoing plastic surgery to conceal her identity.

In 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, The European Union through its European Council decided to include the PFLP on its list of terrorist groups.

The people of Israel are all too familiar with the savagery of the PFLP. It took responsibility for the 2001 assassination of Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi. On Friday night, March 11th 2011, two PFLP members butchered the Fogel family in Itamar, including four-and eleven-year-old children and a three-month infant.

Ms. Khaled sits on the PFLP Central Committee and has not expressed regret for her involvement in terrorism. Because of her history of aiding and abetting terrorism, a police complaint was recently issued against her in Sweden for gross violations of international law.

But that came too late. During her tax-payer funded visit to Sweden, Khaled spoke at the May Day demonstrations of the Stalinist Swedish Communist Party and the Anarcho-syndicalist Trade Union Federation. She held publicly funded lectures at an Art Gallery and spoke on developments in the Middle East at the publicly- funded Södertörn
University College.

Incredibly, Khaled also participated at a seminar on political activism arranged by the Left Party represented in Sweden’s Parliament.

The organizers of her appearances had nothing but praise for the PFLP leader. Anna Ahlstrand, Project Manager at Konsthall C, which is funded by the government’s Arts Grant Committee, declared “she is an icon for many people”. Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Project Manager at the Governmental Arts Grants Committee that financed her tour described the arch terrorist as “a very established feminist thinker.”

Irresponsible behavior
Unfortunately, Leila Khaled isn’t the first member of a Palestinian terrorist group to get special treatment from Stockholm. In 2006, the Swedish consulate in Jerusalem, in contravention of EU regulations, granted a Schengen visa to Hamas’ Minister of Refugees, Atef Adwan. Such a visa makes it possible for the bearer to travel across 15 European Countries. That decision provoked protests from Israel, which said it lent legitimacy to Hamas, and from France, which had rejected earlier visa requests by Hamas leaders.

So far Sweden’s decision to grant entry to Khaled – a leading representative of an organization deemed a terrorist group by more than 30 countries, including Sweden, all EU Member States and the United States – hasn’t spurred protest from the US or other
European countries.

But the decision to allow her into Sweden could have broader consequences. It comes at a time when many European nations want to take back direct control of their national frontiers. Indeed, the European Commission is currently debating the re-imposition of border controls within the so-called Schengen region.

Leila Khalid’s taxpayer-funded trip comes even as Swedish authorities continue to turn a deaf ear to repeated calls from the Jewish Community and the Simon Wiesenthal Center to fund security for Jewish institutions facing increasing anti-Semitism and global Islamist threats.

The irresponsible behavior of Swedish authorities will likely doom any future role in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Back in 2000, following a more even-handed Middle East policy under then Swedish PM Goran Persson, Stockholm did help facilitate Israeli Palestinian negotiations.

According to leaked WikiLeaks reports, Carl Bildt, the current Foreign Minister is characterized, as a “medium size dog with big dog attitude.” But his government hasn’t even bothered to present a veneer of neutrality when it comes to the Holy Land, as evidenced by the fact that not a single minister visited Israel during the Swedish EU Presidency.

On the Iranian front, Bildt distinguished himself as one of the EU leaders most opposed to increased sanctions against Tehran. The very same diplomat rushed to Istanbul in June 2010 to personally greet and have his picture taken with Swedish participants in the infamous Turkish Gaza Flotilla.

If Sweden is serious about opposing terrorism and promoting Mideast peace, it must reveal the circumstances behind Leila Khalid’s entry and departure from Swedish and EU Territory and who approved the allocation of taxpayers’ funds for a woman who stands for everything Osama Bin Laden lived and died for.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Ynetnews.com
Authors
Daniel Schatz
External URL

Hebrew Literature: The Impact of 1948

-

Dan Miron is the Leonard Kaye Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.  He is the author of more than twenty books, in both Hebrew and English.  His books include The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry (2009); a study of the poet and playwright Nathan Alterman, From the Worm a Butterfly Emerges; and two studies of the classics of Yiddish fiction, The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination (2001) and A Traveler Disguised: The Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century (1996).  In 1980 he received the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought, and in 1993 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Hebrew literature.

The public is cordially invited to the reception followed by the special keynote lecture by Professor Dan Miron.

 Reception 5:30-6:15pm

Keynote lecture by Dan Miron 6:15-7:45pm

Professor Miron’s lecture is the keynote address of the conference on “History and Responsibility: Hebrew Literature and 1948."

Levinthal Hall
Stanford Humanities Center
Stanford University

Dan Miron Leonard Kaye Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature Speaker Columbia University
Lectures

“The Upheavals: Iran, America, and History’s New Wave”: Abbas Milani in conversation with Leon Wieseltier

-

Leon Wieseltier, is an American writer, critic, and magazine editor. Since 1983 he has been the literary editor of The New Republic. Wieseltier was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended the Yeshivah of Flatbush, Columbia University, Oxford University, and Harvard University, and was a member of Harvard's Society of Fellows from 1979 to 1982. Wieseltier has published several books of fiction and non-fiction. Kaddish, a National Book Award finalist in 2000, is a genre-blending meditation on the Jewish prayers of mourning. Against Identity is a collection of thoughts about the modern notion of identity. Wieseltier also edited and introduced a volume of works by Lionel Trilling entitled The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent and wrote the foreword to Ann Weiss's The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a collection of personal photographs that serves as a paean to pre-Shoah innocence. Wieseltier's translations of the works of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai have appeared in The New Republic and The New Yorker.

Sponsored by the Hamid & Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies. Co-sponsored by The Europe Center, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

Building 370, Room 370
Stanford University

Leon Wieseltier Speaker
Seminars

Call for Papers: Cosmopolitanism in a Wider Context - Conceptualizing Past and Present

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The conference is organized by the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University, in cooperation with the Nobel Museum.

Ideas and aims

Cosmopolitanism has been a major topic in academia since the end of the cold war. While cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism have been recognized officially, xenophobia has become more intense. Is cosmopolitanism a way out of the xenophobic state, or is the interest in cosmopolitanism in itself adding to antagonism and disrespect for human rights? The problem can be highlighted from several different aspects. However, cosmopolitanism has been extensively theorized within the social sciences, where the semantic field often tends to be separated from its historical context. In an effort to make the academic discussion more responsive to conceptual and historical perspectives, we would like to gather researchers with different backgrounds to an international conference on cosmopolitanism, with a special view to its conceptual history.

The aim of the conference is to present a new perspective on a contemporary discourse, which is often dominated by ahistorical presumptions. The conference seeks to create a meeting between the social sciences and humanities in order to examine how the history, and prehistory, of cosmopolitanism has left traces in contemporary notions and perceptions.  We are interested in how the history of the concept says something about the often contradictory meanings attributed to the term today—empirically, theoretically, and normatively. What impact did the events of 1989 have on the conceptualization of cosmopolitanism? How have the concepts of cosmopolitanism and the cosmopolitan been used in the past—and how and why are they used differently today? Can the cosmopolitan project be released from its original Enlightenment impulses of Eurocentrism and Occidentalism? How do we create or reconstruct a linguistic horizon of intelligibility that transcends rather than reproduces the dichotomizing implications of cosmopolitanism, such as between West/East (and North/South)?

Keynote speakers

Andrew Vincent, Prof. of Political Theory, University of Sheffield
Georg Cavallar, ass. Prof. of Philosophy, University of Vienna
Galin Tihanov, Prof. of Comparative Literature/Intellectual History, University of Manchester
Mica Nava, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of East London

Call for papers: Available here on the conference website.

Where: Södertörn University, Alfred Nobels allé 7, Flemingsberg/Huddinge, Sweden; The Nobel Museum, Stortorget 2, Old Town, Stockholm, Sweden.

Language: English

Anyone interested in participating in the conference with a paper must send in an abstract to cosmopolitanism@sh.se by 19th May, at the latest. The abstracts will be peer reviewed.

For registration and further information, please visit the conference web page at www.sh.se/cbees (follow the link ‘Conferences’).

Coordinator and contact: PhD Kristian Petrov, cosmopolitanism@sh.se

The conference is organized in connection with the research project ‘East of Cosmopolis.’

Website (in Swedish): www.sh.se/adress

Website (in English):  www.sh.se (In English/How to find us)

All News button
1
Subscribe to Western Europe