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The Europe Center January 2017

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Event Recap: The European Crises, Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University)

 

The Europe Center kicked off its winter quarter talks by continuing its series on the European Union. Andrew Moravcsik, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Director of the European Union Program at Princeton, spoke on the topic of "The European Crises."

Andrew MoravcsikIn his talk, Moravcsik spoke about the four major crises currently facing the European Union and argued that these crises present less cause for concern than current discourse would suggest. The first crisis is Europe's purported decline in geopolitical power, particularly vis-à-vis China. Contrary to these claims, however, Moravcsik presented evidence indicating that the European Union outstrips China on various measures, including military spending, the number of combat and non-combat forces deployed abroad, number of aircraft carriers, number of allies, relative economic power, civilian foreign economic assistance, and its effective use of non-military intervention. The second crisis is one of Euroscepticism, as exemplified by Brexit. Moravcsik noted that the current British negotiating position largely reflects the status quo. Moreover, he is skeptical that the there will be a domino effect. Specifically, mainstream political parties are unlikely to call for a referendum on the EU, particularly given the results of the British vote, and that the anti-EU parties, even at their most successful, gain too little national political power to successfully hold a referendum. Migration constitutes the third crisis, and Moravcsik argues that this crisis is as serious as it is being portrayed. However, this crisis is unlikely to undermine the entire European project, as there is a clear and effective political solution - closing the border using fences, criminal law, and repatriation agreements. The final crisis is the lack of economic growth. Again, this crisis is exaggerated as both the EU-28 and the Eurozone have had higher per capita growth over the past decade than has the U.S. or Japan. However, that growth has been uneven across the EU member states and has been either stagnant or negative in countries such as Portugal and Greece. Moravcsik's ultimate take away was that in order to undo the European Union, a crisis must be serious and lacking a clear policy solution, and none of the four crises currently facing the EU meet both of these criteria.

Featured Faculty Research: Vincent Barletta

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 Vincent Barletta. Vincent is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and of Iberian and Latin American Cultures. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998 and joined the faculty at Stanford in 2007.

Vincent's research and teaching focus on medieval and early modern Iberian literatures; Portuguese literature, empire and humanism; Islam and Aljamiado literature; comparative literature; literature and linguistic anthropology; and literature and philosophy. In a recent article, Vincent examines the translation practices of sixteenth-century Ibero-Muslims. As Christian kingdoms expanded into the Muslim territories of the Iberian Peninsula throughout the first half of the second millennium, so the dominant jurisprudence shifted from Islamic law to Christian law. This process culminated in the early sixteenth century, when non-Christians were forced to convert to Christianity. Vincent examines the ways in which clandestine Muslim communities during this period translated and adapted juridical Islamic texts. He argues that the translations themselves and the structure of the texts reflect an interest in "closeness." In order to explicate his arguments, he presents analysis of Abū al-Ḥassan cAli ibn cIsa al-Ṭulayṭulī’s Mukhtaṣar (Compendium), which is a tenth-century guidebook to obligatory religious devotions.

Barletta, Vincent. 2016. "Closeness Before the Law: Purity, Prayer, and al-Tulaytilī's Mukhtasa." Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 17(3):271-284.

Featured Graduate Student Research: Justin Tackett

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 Justin Tackett (English). Justin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at Stanford University.

Justin TackettIn his research, Justin is interested in 19th and 20th century British and American literature, with a focus on sound studies, poetics, Victorianism, transatlantic modernism, periodicals, technology, and urbanization. In his dissertation Justin examines sound technology and poetry in Britain and America from 1816 to 1914. In one of his dissertation chapters, Justin focuses on the work of the little-known Irish poet, James Henry. Supported by The Europe Center, Justin traveled to Dublin in October 2016 in order to examine the only known repository of Henry's manuscripts, which is housed in the Trinity College archives. In addition to his work in the archives, Justin was able to meet with Emeritus Professor John Richmond, now in his nineties and housebound, who wrote the first Henry biography in 1976. His book is now extremely rare and prohibitively expensive, but he generously gave Justin a copy, which will be of great value for his continuing research. In addition to his work towards the chapter on Henry, Justin was able to advance the research for various other chapters of his dissertation by meeting with other scholars and visiting sites of historical importance. Justin plans to return to Trinity in order to finish cataloging Henry's papers.

Please visit our website for more information about our Graduate Student Grant program.

Call for Applications: The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program

Application Deadline: February 7, 2017

A key priority of The Europe Center is to provide Stanford’s undergraduate student community with opportunities to develop a deep understanding of contemporary European society and affairs. By promoting knowledge about the opportunities and challenges facing one of the world’s most economically and politically integrated regions, the Center strives to equip our future leaders with the tools necessary to tackle complex problems related to governance, geopolitics, and economic interdependence both in Europe and in the world more broadly.

In order to facilitate this goal, The Europe Center is sponsoring undergraduate internships to be completed in summer 2017. Sponsored internships are available with the following entities:

  • The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Brussels, Belgium
    ALDE is a transnational political party comprised of national political parties represented in the European Parliament.
    Positions Available: 2
    Program Dates: June 12, 2017 to July 21, 2017
  • Bruegel Brussels, Belgium
    Bruegel is a think-tank devoted to policy research on international economic issues.
    Positions Available: 3
    Program Dates: July 31, 2017 to September 8, 2017
  • Carnegie Europe Brussels, Belgium
    Carnegie Europe is an independent policy research center providing foreign policy analysis and policy recommendations on the strategic issues facing Europe and its role in the world.
    Positions Available: 1
    Program Dates: 9 consecutive weeks, with some flexibility to adjust this to work with the intern's summer schedule, between June 19, 2017 and September 15, 2017 (start and end dates to be determined by the host and the student)
  • The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Brussels, Belgium
    CEPS is a policy think-tank providing research and activities on economic and international policy matters.
    Positions Available: 1
    Program Dates: 6 consecutive weeks between June 19, 2017 and September 15, 2017 (start and end dates to be determined by the host and the student)

We invite applications from Stanford University undergraduate students interested in these exciting opportunities. For more information on The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program, please visit our website.

Visiting Scholar: Dirk Rupnow

The Europe Center is pleased to welcome Dirk Rupnow to Stanford as the 2016-2017 Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor. Dirk is a Professor of Contemporary History, Head of the Institute for Contemporary History, and Founding Coordinator of the Center for Migration and Globalization at the University of Innsbruck.

Dirk RupnowDirk is a historian who is interested in 20th century European history, Holocaust and Jewish studies, cultures and politics of memory, and intellectual and migration history. His current research focuses on developing an inclusive narrative of post-war Austrian history, one that reflects the current plurality and diversity of Austrian society. In order to do so, Dirk will be working primarily on two projects during his time at The Europe Center. In the first project, he is examining the so-called "guest worker“ migration to Austria during the 1960s and 1970s. Because labor migration was viewed as temporary, it somehow remained a blank spot in narratives of post-war Austrian history. But in fact, it has had a lasting effect on Austrian society. The migrants remain nonetheless invisible and have no voice in the discourse on the national history. Dirk seeks to uncover greater information and new sources in order to provide a more complete and multiperspective portrayal of contemporary Austrian history as both a European and global transnational history. In the second project, Dirk seeks to understand how museums can be used to present an inclusive historical narrative to the public. He will lead a group of Austrian museum curators and museologists on a tour of the historical museums in Washington, D.C. - including the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture - in order to observe how the U.S. presents the history of both minority and marginalized groups. As a member of the Advisory Board for the planned House of Austrian History in Vienna, Dirk intends for this work to facilitate a compelling and inclusive presentation of Austrian history. Please join us in welcoming Dirk to Stanford.

The Europe Center Sponsored Events

January 31, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
Lukas Schmid, University of Lucerne 
Human Barriers to International Trade
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM January 27, 2017.

February 2, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
Amie Kreppel, University of Florida 
The Political and Institutional Effects of Brexit 
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM January 30, 2017.

February 9, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
Walter Scheidel, Stanford University 
Book Talk: The Great Leveler
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor 
RSVP by 5:00PM February 6, 2017.

February 16, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
Norman Naimark, Stanford University 
Book Talk: Genocide: A World History
Oksenberg Conference Room, Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 
RSVP by 5:00PM February 13, 2017.

Save the Date: March 3, 2017 
4:00PM - 5:30PM 
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Former President of the French Republic (1974 - 1981)
This event is sponsored by the France-Stanford Center and co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

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.

April 11, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:30PM 
Philippe Van Parijs, University of Louvain
Europe's Destiny: A View from Brussels 
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor 
RSVP by 5:00PM April 7, 2017.

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

January 26, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:15PM 
Andrei Kozyrev, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation
The Future of U.S.-Russian Relations
Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall
RSVP by 5:00PM January 20, 2017.

Save the Date: January 30, 2017 
12:00PM - 1:15PM 
Marie Mendras, Sciences Po and National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Reuben Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor 
RSVP by 5:00PM January 25, 2017.

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.

 

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Leverage and Beliefs: Personal Experience and Risk-Taking in Margin Lending

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What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went bankrupt, many lenders were exposed. In the end, none of them actually lost money. Nonetheless, only those at risk of losing money changed their behavior markedly; they lent with much higher haircuts. The rest continued largely as before. The differential change is remarkable since the distress was public knowledge. Overall leverage in the Amsterdam stock market declined as a result.
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American Economic Review
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Peter Koudijs
Hans-Joachim Voth
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The Haves and the Have-Nots: Exploring the Global History of Wealth and Income Inequality"

Few topics have captured mass, political, and scholarly attention as consistently as income inequality and the distribution of wealth. Seeking to better understand these phenomena by adding a more historical perspective to contemporary debates, Stanford University's Walter Scheidel and colleagues at the University of Vienna organized a conference of scholars working on inequality. Over the course of three days, attendees presented cutting-edge research on historical analyses of inequality within and across countries over three millennia.

This conference, The Haves and the Have Nots: Exploring the Global History of Wealth and Income Inequality, was sponsored by The Europe Center and the University of Vienna. Additional information about the participants and their projects can be found in the conference program.

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Juridicum (top floor / Dachgeschoss)
University of Vienna

 

Conferences

Self-Centered Inequity Aversion and the Mass Politics of Taxation

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The politics of economic crises brings distributive economic conflict to the fore of national political debates. How policy should be used to transfer resources between citizens becomes a central political question, and the answers chosen often influence the trajectory of policy for a generation. This context provides an ideal setting for evaluating the importance of self-interest and other-regarding preferences in shaping public opinion about economic policy. This article investigates whether self-centered inequity aversion along with self-interest influences individual tax policy opinions. We conduct original survey experiments in France and the United States, and provide evidence that individuals care about both how policy alternatives affect their own interests and how they influence the welfare of others relative to themselves.

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Comparative Political Studies
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Xiabo Lü
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49(14)
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The state of US-Russia relations

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At a recent European Security Initiative (ESI) lecture held at the GSB's Oberndorf Event Center, Sergey Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the US, described US-Russia relations as being at its worse point since the end of the Cold War.

Ambassador Kislyak then went on to list the series of US actions that he believes led up to this.  

Moderated by Michael McFaul, the Director of FSI, Professor of Political Science, and former US Ambassador to Russia, the lecture drew a large audience of over 200 students, faculty, staff and members of the public. 

To listen to the lecture in its entirety, please visit our YouTube Channel.

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**Cancelled** President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: The Future of Europe

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**This event has been cancelled.**

This event is co-sponsored by: The France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, The Europe Center, The Hoover Institution, Stanford Global Studies, The French and Italian Department, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and The Stanford Humanities Center.

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Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa Street
Stanford

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Panelist Former President of the French Republic (1974 - 1981)

Christophe Crombez

Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-0249 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center
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PhD

Christophe Crombez is a political economist who specializes in European Union (EU) politics and business-government relations in Europe. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.

Crombez is Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (since 1999). He teaches Introduction to European Studies and The Future of the EU in Stanford’s International Relations Program, and is responsible for the Minor in European Studies and the Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe.

Furthermore, Crombez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium (since 1994). His teaching responsibilities in Leuven include Political Business Strategy and Applied Game Theory. He is Vice-Chair for Research at the Department for Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation.

Crombez has also held visiting positions at the following universities and research institutes: the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, in Florence, Italy, in Spring 2008; the Department of Political Science at the University of Florence, Italy, in Spring 2004; the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, in Winter 2003; the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, in Spring 1998; the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Summer 1998; the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in Spring 1997; the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in Spring 1996; and Leti University in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Fall 1995.

Crombez obtained a B.A. in Applied Economics, Finance, from KU Leuven in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Business, Political Economics, from Stanford University in 1994.

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Senior Research Scholar Panelist The Europe Center

Peter Koudijs

Knight Management Center
Stanford University
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-7298

(650) 725-1673
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Assistant Professor of Finance
Assistant Professor, by courtesy, of Economics
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Peter Koudijs is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches History of Financial Crises in the MBA program. He joined the GSB in August 2011. Peter received a Bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in Economics from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He earned a PhD degree, summa cum laude, in Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain in 2011. Peter has obtained various grants and fellowships from the European Union, the Economic History Association and different Dutch and Spanish scholarship programs.
 

Affiliated Faculty at The Europe Center
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Assistant Professor of Finance Panelist Graduate School of Business
Panel Discussions

Europe and the Global Economy

Although each nation in Europe retains its distinct cultural, social and political identity, the region as a whole is among the world’s most economically integrated zones. The open movement of goods, services, capital, people, and pollutants that we observe today was not, however, inevitable; instead, it was contested, challenged, and reversed at many points in the past.

The Future of Multi-National Corporate Taxation in the European Union – Impact of On-Going EU State Aid Investigations

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According to the OECD, corporate taxation has steadily fallen since 1994 and today represents around 8.5 per cent of all taxes raised by governments across the globe. The proliferation of tax-efficient structures that route profits to low tax countries in the form of interest payments and royalties has been a big drain on revenues. The European Commission has made several unfruitful attempts to coordinate ‘anti-avoidance’ measures. In a recent effort to crack down on ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ [BEPS] to safeguard the future of corporate tax and curb competition between Member States based aggressive tax rulings, the European Commission has embarked on a ‘fairness’ crusade using antitrust prerogatives. Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, McDonalds and many more others have been accused of benefiting from illegal State aid resulting in orders to pay (back) billions of euros. Are American companies really being targeted by the European Commission? How will corporate taxation in the European Union evolve from here?


Photo of Jacques Derenne (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Brussels)

Jacques Derenne is the head of the EU Competition & Regulatory practice at Sheppard Mullin’s Brussels office.  He has over 28 years of competition law experience in all areas (mergers, cartels, abuses of dominance and State aid), in EU regulatory and related competition law issues in a variety of regulated industries such as energy, the postal sector, aviation, railways, telecoms, satellites, the audio-visual sector and tobacco products. He regularly appears at competition hearings before the European Commission, and pleads cases before the General Court and the Court of Justice of the EU, national competition authorities, the Belgian and French courts and various regulatory bodies.

Jacques' State aid experience spans more than two decades, during which time he has acted for beneficiaries, competitors and Member States before the European Commission, EU courts and national courts. He co-directed and co-authored studies for the European Commission on the enforcement of State aid rules at the national level (2006 and 2009), which contributed to the Commission's Recovery and Enforcement Notices in 2007 and 2009 respectively. He co-edited a book on the Enforcement of EU State aid law at national level - 2010 - Reports from the 27 Member States (Lexxion, October 2010), and has written quarterly comments on State aid case law and the Commission’s decisional practice in the journal Concurrences since 2004 (together with EU officials).

Jacques also publishes widely on various other EU constitutional, competition and regulatory issues.  He is a founding member of the Global Competition Law Centre (College of Europe, Scientific Council and Executive Committee). He graduated from the University of Liège (Belgium, 1987) and from the College of Europe (Bruges, 1988), and teaches competition law (State aid aspects) at the University of Liège and at the Brussels School of Competition.

Photo of Yaniss Aiche (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Brussels)

Yaniss Aiche is a Counsel in the EU Competition and Regulatory Practice in Brussels. His practice focuses on the intersection between public policy, government affairs and legal advocacy. He brings corporations, financial institutions, non-profit organizations and government bodies an integrated strategic insight that combines a deep legal, political and business expertise to help them with policy risk assessments and compliance, monitor relevant policy developments and effectively advocate their interests towards key EU institutions and EMEA governments.

Yaniss has over 15 years of experience in EU Policy, international trade and strategic business development. Yaniss started his career in 2000 in Brussels as an expert advisor on international trade and trade negotiations within the WTO's Doha Development Agenda where he advised governments, corporations and trade associations on a range of intricate political and legal challenges including investment promotion, cultural services and goods, defense contracting an free trade. In 2007, Yaniss joined AHEL, the consulting arm of The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London where he focused on advising F500 companies at executive and board level on geopolitical and military risk, investment policy development. In this role he supported the business expansion of European and US companies in the Far and Near East.

In more recent years Yaniss has worked in senior positions for leading global law firms assisting them with their regional expansion, client development strategies and legal services packaging.

Yaniss holds a JD from the University of Gent, a Masters from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Jacques Derenne Partner, Head of EU Competition & Regulatory Speaker Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Brussels
Yaniss Aiche Counsel EU Policy and EMEA Government Affairs Speaker Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Brussels
Panel Discussions
Europe and the Global Economy
Europe and the Global Economy Seminar Series
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