Stanford University

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

Joffe reviews Herring's 'From Colony to Superpower' in NYT

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"The strength of this book is the author's Herculean power of synthesis," writes FSI senior fellow Josef Joffe in the New York Times article, "Entangling alliances". "Ours is the age of merciless specialization -- no grand prizes for grand sweeps. Yet Herring recaptures a quarter-millennium of American foreign policy with fluidity and felicity. Wisely or warily, he avoids taking sides in the great controversies; a good teacher, he presents the 'on the one hand' along with the 'on the other,' copious references included." George C. Herring will be giving a lecture at FSI on Nov. 17 titled, "From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776".
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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

My Staff and My Redeemer: Why Three-Quarters of West Europeans Would Elect Obama

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In Europe, even more than in the United States, Obama appears not as a politico, but as as canvas which allows the Europeans to project their fondest wishes onto a man they hardly know. Disappointment is bound to happen.

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.

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Oksenberg Conference Room

Josef Joffe Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Visiting Professor, Political Science, Stanford University; Fellow, Hoover Institution Speaker
Seminars

Soft Power, the War of Ideas, and the Next U.S. President

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Jeffrey Gedmin is President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. and in that capacity directs Broadcasting and Internet operations in 28 languages to countries stretching from Belarus to Bosnia and from the Arctic Sea to the Persian Gulf. Dr. Gedmin is author of the book "The Hidden Hand: Gorbachev and the Collapse of East Germany" (1992) and editor of a collection of essays titled "European Integration and the American Interest" (1997). He was also executive editor and producer of the award-winning PBS television program, "The Germans, Portrait of a New Nation" (1995) and co-executive producer of the documentary film titled "Spain's 9/11 and the Challenge of Radical Islam in Europe," aired on PBS in the spring of 2007. Jeffrey Gedmin has taught at Georgetown University and is an honorary professor at the University of Konstanz in Germany. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of the Council for a Community of Democracies (Washington, D.C.) and the Program of Atlantic Security Studies (Prague, Czech Republic), Gedmin holds a PhD. in German Area Studies and Linguistics from Georgetown University.

Dr. Gedmin's piece "Reporting Among Gangsters" on human rights violations perpetrated against journalists in Central Asia, appeared in the July 2, 2008 edition of the Washington Post.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Jeffrey Gedmin President, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Speaker
Seminars

Creating a New Europe

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Professor Hedlund explores a shift in focus in Europe away from the 'Brussels vs. Moscow' attitude by proposing strategic interaction in what he calls the 'corridor countries.' He discusses why there is a variety of outcomes in terms of economic success in these countries, in particular the strain of rapid deregulation in 1991 in the Soviet Union. Professor Hedlund also examines the challenges for these countries in Europe now.

Synopsis

In 'Creating a New Europe,' Professor Hedlund begins by discussing the choice the European Union had when they met in the Netherlands in 1991. He argues policymakers could have widened the concept of European integration through free trade and economic cooperation which would have led to unlimited expansion options towards the East. However, Prof. Hedlund argues they decided instead to deepen this notion of 'the United States of Europe' through a currency, flag, and constitution leading to an exclusionary approach. Now, in 2008, there is new opportunity with new members in the EU. Problems such as Russia's interaction with its neighbors which were formerly seen as external issues are now internal issues affecting Brussels. Rather than being 'grateful children' as Jacques Chirac infamously put it, these 'corridor states' are decentralising the game between Brussels and Moscow. Prof. Hedlund argues we must look for more substantial success in internal dynamics in these 'corridor states,' states which were formerly part of the U.S.S.R. and are now part of the EU or are hoping to be in the near future. To Prof. Hedlund, these states are in a good position to act as credible brokers for strategic interaction between the EU and Russia, as well as between each other, such as Lithuania's intervention during the Orange Revolution.

Prof. Hedlund explains how these ‘corridor countries’ were seen as homogenous in 1991 but now have a great diversity in economic outcomes. Much of this can be attributed to the over eager embracement of a market economy by Russia in 1991 and the hardship it caused. In addition, Prof. Hedlund identifies the corrupted markets which exploited the natural resources available following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moreover, Prof. Hedlund cites that the ‘rent seeking’ attitude of the Russian government was not reciprocated in all former Soviet states. Some were arguably lured by the prospect of EU membership while others might have drawn in by the examples of the successful and democratic Western countries.

To Prof. Hedlund, the challenge now is to develop forward movement in the areas of the ‘corridor countries’ that have become stalled. In addition, some of the markets in those areas must be developed away from their, as he puts it, ‘3rd world’ manners of operating. Accountability is crucial to a functioning economy to Prof. Hedlund. Finally, these ‘corridor countries’ can help in democracy building.

In taking questions, Prof. Hedlund further reiterates his belief in the necessity of accountability. In addition, he touches on his sense that European education is waning, and that this is setting back innovation. Moreover, Prof. Hedlund addresses the merits of a variety of diplomatic approaches.

About the speaker

Stefan Hedlund is an Anna Lindh Research Fellow at the Stanford Forum on Contemporary Europe. He is professor of Soviet and East European Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. Before 1991, his research was centered on the Soviet economic system. Since then, he has been focusing on Russia's adaptation to post-Soviet realities. This has included research on the multiple challenges of economic transition as well as the importance of Russia's historical legacy for the reforms. With a background in economics, he has a long-standing interest in problems related to the Soviet economic system, and the attempted transition that followed in the wake of the Soviet collapse. More recently, his research has revolved around neo-institutional theory, and problems of path dependence. Among sixteen authored and coauthored titles in English and Swedish, he is the author of Russian Path Dependence (2005), and the forthcoming co-edited volume Russia Since 1980: Wrestling with Westernization (Cambridge, 2009.) Professor Hedlund has received numerous awards including fellowships at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University; the Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University; and at the Kennan Institute, Washington DC.

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Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Stefan Hedlund

Department of East European Studies
Uppsala University
Gamla Torget 3, III
Box 514, 751 20 UPPSALA
Sweden

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Professor of East European Studies, Uppsala University
Visiting Scholar, Forum on Contemporary Europe (December 2008)
Hedlund_photo.JPG PhD

Stefan Hedlund is Professor of East European Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. A long-standing specialist on Russia, and on the Former Soviet Union more broadly, his current research interest is aimed at economic theories of institutional change. He also has a devouring interest in Russian history, which he has sought to blend with more standard theories of economic change. He has been a frequent contributor to the media, and has published extensively on matters relating to Russian economic reform and to the attempted transition to democracy and market economy more generally. His scholarly publications include some 20 books and close to 200 journal and magazine articles. His most recent monographs are Russian Path Dependence (Routledge, 2005), and Russia since 1980: Wrestling with Westernization (Cambridge University Press, 2008), the latter co-authored with Steven Rosefielde.

 

Stefan Hedlund Professor of Soviet and East European Studies Speaker Uppsala University, Sweden
Seminars

Multiyear study of the challenges to European Union integration and crisis intervention

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Roland Hsu
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The Forum on Contemporary Europe (FCE) continues a multiyear study of the challenges facing European Union integration and global crisis intervention. The increasingly complex demands straining Europe and its trans-Atlantic relations—labor migration, spending on welfare economies, globalized cultures, and threats of terrorism, coupled with Europe’s struggle to ratify a single constitution—underline the need to measure prospects for unification and the EU’s ability to function as a coordinated international actor. This year, FCE is broadening its work to assess the role an integrated EU can play in addressing the world’s most troubling crises.

EU INTEGRATION: THE CASE OF TURKEY

The forum has explored the question of Turkey’s EU membership with Stanford scholars, European leaders, and the public. In spring 2006, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and author Christopher Hitchens offered candid analyses of EU expansion. Hitchens challenged commonplace descriptions of “Christian Old Europe” antagonized by “Islamicized” secular Turkey. Europe and Islam are not newly in contention, he said, but are playing out a centuries-old relationship grounded in the European and Ottoman empires in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Hitchens, the portrait of clashing civilizations obscures the crises facing minority Kurdish and neighboring societies whose survival is at stake in EU expansion.

Delivering the Payne lecture, Fischer noted the dilemma of seeking to achieve popular ratification of a European constitution at a time when public attention is galvanized by the Turkish candidacy. Fischer rejected common comparisons between European state rulings on Islamic traditions and models of U.S. multiculturalism. Fischer found admirable aspects of the U.S. inspiration but questioned its relevance for mediating myriad EU interests. For Fischer, the EU as a supra-state actor holds the promise to democratize conflict resolution in the deliberative model of the European Parliament and legitimate its role as a peacekeeping actor.

EU INTERVENTION: CRISIS MANAGMENT AND COMBATING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

The forum’s new focus on EU crisis intervention began with addresses by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain’s Security Services (MI-6), and Alain Bauer, former vice president of the University of Paris–Sorbonne and director of France’s National Institute for Higher Studies in Security, who discussed EU counterintelligence and international early-warning protocols. Greek Ambassador Alexandros Mallias spoke on the Eastern Mediterranean context that frames the Turkish candidacy, the economics of EU integration, and prospects for responding to the tensions in Cyprus. Austrian Ambassador Eva Novotny spoke on Austria’s immediate past EU presidency, evaluating the impact of the EU Council’s intervention in the Israel-Lebanon crisis. Professor Josef Joffe spoke on his new book, Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America, and the prospects for U.S.–EU interaction in global affairs.

The forum’s fall series brought public acclaim when Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the European Parliament Greens/New Alliance Parties, delivered FCE’s 2006–2007 “Europe Now” address, cosponsored by Stanford’s Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment. Speaking to an overflow crowd, and meeting separately with faculty and researchers, Cohn-Bendit focused his public remarks on European Integration: Society, Politics, and Islam. A European Parliament leader, Cohn-Bendit spoke on his party’s proposal to deploy Joschka Fischer as the EU representative to Middle East peace negotiations. Expanding and integrating the EU, Cohn-Bendit argued, is the most reasonable strategy for strengthening Europe’s role in international relations and crisis intervention.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe continues to deepen scholarly and public understanding of the EU promise to achieve democratic governance, economic growth, security, and social integration among its member states and in its foreign engagements.

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Societies in Transition: Adjusting to Changing Global Environments

In 1998/99, thirty key organizations and foundations involved in transatlantic cultural, scientific and media relations, including DAAD, met at a "Round Table USA" to discuss ways in which to improve the harmonization of their activities and possible areas of synergy. One of the outcomes was the joint decision to stage a German-American Conference every two years to bring together promising young academics and professionals to examine subjects that will be of crucial importance for future German-American cooperation.

The 4th Alumni Conference of the Round Table USA will be:
"Societies in Transition – Adjusting to Changing Global Environments"
Stanford, California – June 26-28, 2008

The conference aims to offer a fresh look at the challenges which the ongoing process of globalization imposes on various areas of life such as
• Global Change and Civil Societies
• Pluralist Societies and a Common Cannon of Values – A Contradiction?
• The Role of Religious Convictions in Our Societies and Their Futures
• How Do Mobility and Migration Change Our Societies?
• Transnational Politics and Global Responsibility

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Bechtel Conference Center

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