Report Published by Students Participating in The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program
Each summer, The Europe Center sponsors Stanford undergraduate students to complete internships with partner organizations in Europe. For summer 2016, TEC and the European Security Initiative sponsored two internships with the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia, devoted to developing cutting-edge knowledge and analysis of international security and defense issues. During their time at ICDS, Caitlyn Littlepage and Sarah Manney worked on a project examining the implications of the U.S. presidential election for Transatlantic security relations. Based on this research, Caitlyn and Sarah wrote a policy analysis paper that was subsequently published by ICDS.
Executive Summary
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a maximalist both in political background and campaign rhetoric, is likely to maintain the status quo of U.S. NATO assistance and possibly increase allied presence along NATO’s eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. Surrounded by a team of hawkish foreign policy advisors and partnered with a traditionally pro-NATO Congress, the former Secretary of State should face few obstacles to advancing deterrence and responding decisively in the event of a crisis. In contrast, Republican nominee Donald Trump vacillates between two dangerous extremes: hair-trigger impulsivity and sycophantic flattery of Vladimir Putin. The former is an unfortunate personality quirk with the potential to spark international incidents without warning while the latter is actively encouraged by Trump’s entourage. The candidate and his core team of advisors share deep economic and personal interests in Russia and appear to prioritize the country over established U.S. allies. While Clinton presents NATO’s borders as inviolable, Trump indicates that anything is negotiable, putting the onus on NATO members to prove their worth rather than on Russia to justify its actions. The Kremlin appears to have received the message. When discussing the candidates, the Russian media primarily praises Trump and derides Clinton for their respective security policies likely because Trump’s enables Putin to more easily carry out his aggressive foreign policy objectives while they believe Clinton’s are more likely to tie their hands. For NATO members along the eastern border with Russia, a future with President Clinton is the preferable option. However, as the race is yet to be decided both these states and NATO as an entity must plan for the expected security implications of President Trump.
The full report is available for download on the ICDS website.
For more information about The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe, please visit our website.
Brexit: What's Next for the UK and Europe?
Please mark your calendars for a panel discussion featuring Nicholas Bloom (William Eberle Professor of Economics and Senior Fellow at SIEPR; Co-Director, Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program at NBER) and Christophe Crombez (Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center; Professor of Political Economy at KU Leuven, Belgium).
Date: October 10, 2016
Time: 12:00PM to 1:30PM
Location: The Oksenberg Room, Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM October 6, 2016.
What's next for the UK and Europe? One thing is clear: Brexit will have far-reaching political and economic consequences. Please join us for a panel discussion featuring Stanford faculty members Nick Bloom and Christophe Crombez who will lead a discussion about the future of the UK's relationship with Europe and Brexit's most important political and economic consequences. For more information about this exciting and timely event, please visit our website.
Featured Faculty Research: Anna Grzymala-Busse
We would like to introduce you to some of The Europe Center’s faculty affiliates and the projects on which they are working. Our featured faculty member this month is Anna Grzymala-Busse, who is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Anna earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2000 and joined the faculty at Stanford University this year. In her research, Anna is interested in political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Her most recent book, Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy, Anna examines the conditions under which churches are able to exert influence on public policy. Using the cases of Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the United States and Canada, she demonstrates that neither religiosity nor public demand for church influence in the state nor any of several alternative factors can explain why the church exerts strong influence on public policy in Ireland, Poland, and the United States, but not in Italy, Croatia, and Canada. Rather, she finds that churches are able to influence policy when they have direct institutional access. Gaining institutional access, however, requires that national and religious identities are intertwined such that the church is identified with the national interest. Such fusion between national and religious identities occurred where the church came to the defense of the nation, as the Catholic Church did in both Ireland and Poland. Anna won the 2016 Best Book Award for the European Politics and Society Section of the American Political Science Association for Nations under God. Anna is currently working on a project entitled “The Dictator's Curse? Authoritarian Party Collapse and the Nation State,” for which she received a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2015. Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Featured Graduate Student Research: Lindsay Der
We would like to introduce you to some of the graduate students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured graduate student this month is Lindsay Der (Anthropology). Lindsay earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology (Archaeology track) at Stanford University in summer 2016. She is currently working as a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and is a Researcher with the Çatalhöyük Research Project.
In her research, Lindsay is interested in the relationship between humans and animals and the societal implications of that relationship, particularly at the origins of agriculture. Her doctoral thesis, The Role of Human-Animal Relations in the Social and Material Organization of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, examined the effect of changing human-animal relations on the social structure and eventual abandoment of the Neolithic prehistoric town of Çatalhöyük (7400-6000 BC), located in modern-day Turkey. Çatalhöyük is an ideal location to study this relationship: this densely-populated and typically egalitarian town was continuously inhabited for over 1,000 years during period of transition of increasing reliance on agriculture and a decreasing emphasis on hunting and gathering. By examining art and evidence of social interactions excavated at the site, Lindsay found that the domestication of wild animals precipitated a shift in human-animal relations that fundamentally altered Çatalhöyük's social structure, contributing to emergent social inequality and Çatalhöyük's eventual abandoment.
Supported by The Europe Center, Lindsay conducted field research at Çatalhöyük in June and July 2016 during which she found evidence that midway through the site's Neolithic period (or, late Stone Age) art featuring animals shifted from predominantly depicting wild animals to depicting domesticated animals, as well as anthropomorphic figurines. Importantly for Lindsay's argument, this sets the scene for the site's later Chalcolithic period (a transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age) during which humans increasingly see animals less like people and more like things. Pictured is one such anthropomorphic figurine (top left) and one quadruped (bottom left), both of which were discovered during Lindsay's time at Çatalhöyük. Lindsay plans to return to Çatalhöyük at least twice in the next couple of years. In her ongoing research, Lindsay intends to build upon the work in her dissertation by examining other sites that pre- and post-date Çatalhöyük, but are stratigraphically related, to further expand understanding of animal symbolism both regionally and chronologically.
For more information about The Europe Center's Graduate Student Grant program, please visit our website.
Call for Proposals: Graduate Student Grant Competition
Accepting Applications: September 26, 2016 - October 21, 2016
The Europe Center invites applications from graduate and professional students at Stanford University whose research or work focuses on Europe. Funds are available for Ph.D. candidates across a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to prepare for dissertation research and to conduct research on approved dissertation projects. The Europe Center also supports early graduate students who wish to determine the feasibility of a dissertation topic or acquire training relevant for that topic. Additionally, funds are available for professional students whose interests focus on some aspect of European politics, economics, history, or culture; the latter may be used to support an internship or a research project. For more information please visit our website.
Visiting Student Researcher: Jaakko Meriläinen
We are pleased to introduce Jaakko Meriläinen, a Visiting Student Researcher from the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. Jaakko is a political economist who is interested in the relationship between political representation, political participation, and economics, economic and political history, and immigration. His current research concerns political careers, economic consequences of political representation, historical development of voting behavior, and the historical impact of time-saving technologies on women's participation in the labor force and in politics. Please join us in welcoming Jaakko to Stanford.
The Europe Center Sponsored Events
October 10, 2016
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Nick Bloom, Department of Economics
Christophe Crombez, The Europe Center
Brexit: What's next for the UK and Europe?
This event is now full. Please write to khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.
November 10, 2016
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Markus Tepe, University of Oldenburg
What's happening with Germany's party system? Exploring the emergence of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM November 6, 2016.
Save the Date: November 14, 2016
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Yaniss Aiche, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton, LLP
Jacques Derenne, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton, LLP
The Future of Multi-National Corporate Taxation in the European Union: Impact of On-Going EU State Aid Investigations
Reuben Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
Save the Date: January 17, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University
The Oksenberg Room, Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
Save the Date: February 27, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Amie Kreppel, University of Florida
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
Save the Date: April 3, 2017
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Guido Tabellini, Bocconi University
Room 400 (Graham Stuart Lounge), Encina Hall West No RSVP required.
This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.
Save the Date: April 24, 2017
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Torun Dewan, London School of Economics
Room 400 (Graham Stuart Lounge), Encina Hall West No RSVP required.
This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.
Save the Date: June 5, 2017
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Daniel Stegmuller, University of Mannheim
Room 400 (Graham Stuart Lounge), Encina Hall West No RSVP required.
This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.
European Security Initiative Events
Save the Date: October 26, 2016
12:00PM - 1:30PM
John Emerson, United States Ambassador to Germany
RSVP by 5:00PM October 23, 2016.
Save the Date: November 10, 2016
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Sergei Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the US
Co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
Save the Date: January 26, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Andrei Kozyrev, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation
Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Save the Date: April 10, 2017
Time TBA
Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Bulgaria
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.
FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
