Stanford University

Individual Tolerance: The Contrary Effects of the Social Context

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The sources of individual tolerance towards different social groups have been subject of many empirical studies. But, these analyses have been considering two levels at best, for example by considering individual attitudes and the affiliation to a country. Here, this paper goes a step further and applies a three levels approach. Database is the World Value Survey of 1999; the sub sample comprises about 18,000 respondents from 16 European countries and 147 European regions. Dependent variable is an index constructed from the attitudes toward such different social groups as immigrants, communists, right-wing extremists, and others.

It is shown that there work contrary processes at the regional and the national level: As expected, national prosperity raises the individual tolerance. But, regional prosperity lowers it. Possible explanations are that regions with a high average occupational status attract social minorities and that this in-flow results in higher competition in terms of group threat. Another explanation can be that these regions are highly competitive in terms of internal rivalry and that this pressure results in a lower level of tolerance independently of the presence of social minorities.

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Markus Hadler

Societal Determinants of National and European Identities: 1995 and 2003 in comparison

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For many centuries, Europe had been a battleground. Finally, after World War II, a number of European leaders came to the conclusion that closer economic and political cooperation of their countries could secure peace in the region. This consensus led to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 with six members, Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Since then the integration of European countries has progressed exponentially, engendering formal institutions such as the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and the European Parliament. Currently, the European Union (EU) comprises already 27 member states. Yet, Europe is a patchwork of many nations with strong national, regional, ethnical, and even religious identities. Thus, in spite of the institutional proliferation of symbols of a united Europe, the strength of a European identity at the individual level and its relations to other identities have been a matter of debate. Especially, since the formation of the EU, coupled with growing immigration to and within Europe (Quillian, 1995; McLaren, 2003) gave also rise to a resurgence of nativist political movements in spite of the efforts to promote a European identity. Identities, their development, and their relation to each other are discussed within different disciplines. Their common denominator is that identities are seen as fluid, influenced by the context and dependent on the previous and expected identities. In this paper we are, thus, focusing on the effect of contextual variables at the country level on the individual affiliation to Europe and the nation and the changes between 1995 and 2003. In a twin paper, we are focusing on the processes at the individual level and the relationship between different layers of identities.

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Markus Hadler

FCE to welcome Professor Astrid Fellner, Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair 2008-2009

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The endowment for the Distinguished Austrian Chair Professorship was established in 1977. This year the Forum is pleased to welcome Astrid Fellner (English and American Studies, University of Vienna) as the 2008-2009 Distinguished Austrian Chair. Professor Fellner will teach in the Department of Comparative Literature during the Winter and Spring quarters of 2009. She is preceeded by former Distinguished Austrian Chairs Andreas Wiebe (Law, 2007-2008), and Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl(Music, 2006-2007).

 

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Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution as Illustrated by the Incidents at Oradour in France, Via Rasella in Rome, and Ujvidék/Novi Sad in Hungary/Yugoslavia

Former Spanish Prime Minister speaks at Stanford

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José María Aznar, Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004, delivered a public lecture to an overflow crowd at Stanford University on November 17, 2008, entitled, "America and Europe After Bush." This program was sponsored jointly by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, International Law Society, and Stanford Law School.
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America and Europe After Bush

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This program is sponsored jointly by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, International Law Society, and Stanford Law School.

José María Aznar was born in Madrid in 1953. He is:

  • Executive President of FAES Presidente Ejecutivo de FAES (The Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis).
  • Distinguished Scholar at the University of Georgetown where he has taught various seminars on contemporary European politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School since the year 2004.
  • Member of the Board of Directors of News Corporation.
  • Member of the Global Advisory Board of J.E. Robert Companies y Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Latin American division
  • Member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council of the United Status.
  • Member of the Advisory Board of Centaurus Capital
  • Advisor of Falck SPA

He became Prime Minister of Spain in 1996, following the electoral victory of the Partido Popular. With the party's subsequent electoral victory in the year 2000, this time with an absolute majority, he led the country again for a new term. His time as Prime Minister lasted up until the elections of 2004, when he voluntarily chose not to run for office again.

Throughout his two terms as Prime Minister of the Government he led an important process of economic and social reform. Thanks to various liberalisation processes and the introduction of measures to promote competition, along with budgetary controls, rationalised public spending and tax reductions, almost 5 million jobs were created in Spain. The Spanish GDP figure grew each year by more than 2%, at an average of 3.4% in fact, featuring an aggregate increase of 64% over eight years. Throughout this period, Spain's average income increased from 78% to 87% of the average income of the European Union. The public deficit decreased from an alarming 6% of GDP to a balanced budget. Furthermore, the first two reductions in income tax that democratic Spain has ever known took place during his two terms in office.

One of José María Aznar's most serious concerns is the battle against terrorism. He is in favour of a firm policy, one that is against any kind of political concession, combined with close international cooperation between democratic countries. He is a strong supporter of the Atlantic Relationship and the European Union's commitment to freedoms and economic reform.

He is the Honorary Chairman of the Partido Popular, a party he chaired between 1990 and 2004. Until the year 2006 he was the President of the Centrist Democrat International (CDI) and Vice-President of the International Democrat Union (IDU), the two international organisations that bring together the parties of the Centre, along with Liberals, Christian Democrats and Conservatives throughout the world.

He forms part of the committees of various organisations, including the committee for the initiative known as "One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)" and the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC).

José María Aznar began his political career in the political party known as Alianza Popular, in 1979. In 1982 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Ávila. He then went on to become the Regional Chairman of Alianza Popular in Castile-Leon and the Head of the Regional Government of Castile-Leon between 1987 and 1989. In 1989, following the re-founding of the Partido Popular, he was chosen as a party candidate for Prime Minister in the general elections of 1989. The following year he was elected Chairman of the Party. He led the Partido Popular in the elections of 1993, 1996 and the year 2000. Throughout these four legislatures, he served as a Member of Parliament for Madrid. Between 1989 and 1996 he was the Leader of the Opposition.

José María Aznar graduated in law at the Complutense University. He qualified as an Inspector of State Finances in 1975.

He has written the following books: Cartas a un Joven Español (2007), Retratos y Perfiles. De Fraga a Bush (2005) ("Portraits and Profiles: From Fraga to Bush"), Ocho años de Gobierno (2004) ("Eight Years in Government"), La España en que yo creo (1995) ("The Spain I Believe in"), España: la segunda transición (1994) ("Spain: The Second Transition") and Libertad y Solidaridad (1991) ("Freedom and Solidarity").

José María Aznar has been awarded honorary doctorates by Sophia University in Tokyo (1997), Florida International University (1998), Bar-Ilan University in Israel (2005) Ciencias Aplicadas University in Perú (2006), Andrés Belló University in Chile (2006), Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala (2006) and by Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore in Milán (2007).

He is married to Ana Botella, with whom he has three children and three grandchildren.

A video recording of this event can be viewed at: http://www.law.stanford.edu/calendar/details/2201/#related_information_and_recordings.

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Stanford Law School
Room 290

José María Aznar Former Prime Minister, Spain Speaker
Lectures

Security and Energy in the Black Sea Region - a Romanian Perspective

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Sponsored jointly by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

The Honorable Adrian Vierita Ambassador of Romania to the US Speaker
Seminars

Wake Up Call: Grünbein, Descartes, Pushkin

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Michael Eskin (Ph.D., Rutgers 1998) studied comparative literature, German, American, and Russian literature, and philosophy. Before coming to Columbia, he was a Research Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of Nabokovs Version von Puskins "Evgenij Onegin": Zwischen Version und Fiktion - eine Ubersetzungs- und fiktionstheoretische Untersuchung (Sagner 1994); Ethics and Dialogue in the Works of Levinas, Bakhtin, Mandel'shtam, and Celan (Oxford University Press 2000); and Poetic Affairs: Celan, Grunbein, Brodsky (Stanford University Press; forthcoming). His articles have appeared in such venues as PMLA, Poetics Today, Semiotica, New German Critique, and TLS. He has also edited special issues of The Germanic Review (77/1, 2002) and Poetics Today (25/4, 2004). Currently, he is working on two book projects: one, dealing with philosophical autobiographies; the other with poetic inscriptions of time.

Michael Eskin's areas of teaching and research are: nineteenth- through twenty-first-century literature and intellectual history; post-world war II and contemporary poetry and culture; interdisciplinary and philosophical approaches to literature (ethics and literature, hermeneutics, semiotics), literary theory and criticism, the theory and practice of translation, as well as the theory of fiction and narrative.

Jointly sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of German Studies, Forum on Contemporary Europe, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Comparative Literature, and the DLCL Philosophy Reading group.

 

Pigott Hall (Building 260) Room 113

Michael Eskin Columbia University Speaker
Seminars
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