Stanford University

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

Conferences

Transatlantic Academy project on 'Turkey and Its Neighbors: Prospects for the Transatlantic Relationship'

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The Transatlantic Academy is seeking candidates to serve as resident fellows. A joint project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and the Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation, the Transatlantic Academy is located at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC. The Academy brings together scholars from Europe and North America to work on a single set of issues facing the transatlantic community. It is an interdisciplinary institution which is open to all social science disciplines. Fellows will be resident for ten months beginning in October 2009. The Academy welcomes applications from scholars working on the theme of 'Turkey and Its Neighbors: Implications for the Transatlantic Relationship.'

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Semantic Information Systems and Visualization

Business Informatics

In today’s businesses information technology plays a central role. It is not only tightly knit into most enterprises’ core business processes but can also be a major source of innovation. For a considerable time the research in computer science has been concerned both with developing solutions that enable or facilitate particular business activities as well as with the provision of an infrastructure that is capable of providing the necessary data and computing capacity to these applications.

Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia

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In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle.
 
Marshall Goldman incorporated extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, in his new revealing book that chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. Goldman provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible.
 
The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power. Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.

About the Speaker
Marshall I. Goldman is the Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Soviet Economics Emeritus at Wellesley College and until he retired, the Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. He earned a B.S. in economics from the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania (1952), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1985. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Goldman’s publications include The Piratization of the Russian Economy, (Routledge April 2003), Lost Opportunity: Why Economic Reforms in Russia Have Not Worked (W.W. Norton, 1994), What Went Wrong with Perestroika: The Rise and Fall of Mikhail Gorbachev (W.W. Norton, 1991), Gorbachev’s Challenge: Economic Reform in the Age of High Technology (1987), The USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic Model (1983), The Enigma of Soviet Petroleum: Half Empty or Half Full? ((1980), Détente and Dollars: Doing Business with the Soviets (1975), The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union (1972), and Ecology and Economics: Controlling Pollution in the 70’s (1972). Dr. Goldman has published widely in Foreign Affairs, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is a frequent guest on CNN and “Good Morning America” and has appeared on “NewsHour”, “Crossfire”, “Face the Nation”, “The Today Show”, “Nightline”, and NPR.

Dr. Goldman’s latest book, to be published by Oxford University Press in April, 2008, is Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia.

This seminar is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

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Marshall Goldman Professor Emeritus of Soviet Economics Speaker Wellesley College
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The European Union - entering the big league?

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The European Union has been described as "an economic giant but a political pygmy". Will its new Reform Treaty, currently being ratified by the member states, enable it to play a more powerful role in world affairs? 

Dick Leonard wrote the best-selling book, The Economist Guide to the European Union  (9 editions, translated into nine languages), widely recognised as the most authoritative guide to the EU.  A former British Member of Parliament, he has been covering the European Union as a Brussels-based journalist for over 25 years.

A former Assistant Editor of The Economist, he has also worked for the BBC and The Observer and has contributed to leading newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, Japan and New Zealand, as well as the Brussels-based publications, European Voice and The Bulletin. He was for many years a contributing editor of the Washington-based magazine, Europe.

Apart from his work as a journalist, he has been a Professor at Brussels University (ULB), a senior consultant to the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the well-known think tank, and European Advisor to the British publishing industry.

A long-term campaigner for British membership of the European Union, he was one of the minority of Labour MPs who voted in favour of British entry in 1971, despite the opposition of his party. During his time as an MP, he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Anthony Crosland, who was later Foreign Secretary.

Dick Leonard is the author or part-author of some 20 books, including Eminent Europeans, How to Win the Euro Referendum, Elections in Britain (five editions) and The Pro-European Reader, which he co-edited with his son, Mark Leonard. The ninth edition of his book, The Economist Guide to the European Union, published in 2005, has been widely and enthusiastically reviewed. Since then he has published the highly praised A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair, to be followed by 19th British Century Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery, which will appear in May 2008.

A highly experienced broadcaster and public speaker, he has made five successful lecture tours in the United States and Canada, as well as lecturing regularly in London, Brussels and other European cities.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

Dick Leonard Journalist and author Speaker
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A Status Report from the Software Decompilation Battle

A source of sores for software copyright owners in the European Union and the United States?

For traditional media, such as novels, copyright represents a “bargain” between the individual author and the general public: the author has an exclusive right to make and sell copies, but anyone can look at the novel, learn from its ideas, and use those ideas as a stimulus for the creation and a reward for the publication of new works.

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