The Europe Center is jointly housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Global Studies Division.
FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling.
FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world.
FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.
Here’s how Donald Trump can reassure our alliesthatthe United States won’t abandon its friends.
Insight into why the largest professional association of humanities scholars in North America rejected a BDS motion to boycott Israeli universities
The new administration will inherit a Middle East foreign policy in tatters. The aspirations of President Obama’s Cairo speech of 2009 have not been met. Instead, failed states proliferate, non-state actors amplify disorder, and the stable rulers that remain rely on shaky legitimacy. The paradigm of a system of nation states may be disappearing before our eyes.
On 17 January, Antonio Tajani took over as the new President of the European Parliament. Christophe Crombez argues that while Tajani’s election has been portrayed by some observers as another EU backroom deal, the developments that led to his appointment lay the groundwork for more clearly defined policy choices to be presented to voters at the 2019 European Parliament elections.
Not that long ago, debates over politics were anchored in a clear opposition between universalism and relativism. Proponents of an inclusive structure of, at least aspirationally, all states—the new world order—envisioned an unchallenged entrenchment of democratic capitalism everywhere. Where dictatorships endured, as in North Korea, they were treated as bizarre outliers, exceptions that proved the rule of the progress of mankind toward Kant’s perpetual peace. Universalist values held sway; ultimately all rights were to become human rights, due to all humans solely on the basis of their humanity, implying that rights pursuant to national citizenship, to membership in any particular national community, would dwindle in significance: no borders, no sovereignty, no traditions. However this conceptual expression of globalization faced sophisticated critics, variously postmodern, which treated that universalism with disdain and suspicion, insinuating to it an imperial agenda and offering an alternative program of multiplicity, diversity, and multipolarity
Born into a Jewish family in Algeria in 1948, Bernard-Henri Lévy was raised in Paris, where he enrolled in the elite Ecole Normale in the embattled year of 1968. It was a dramatic historical moment. Revolutionary illusions and intellectual inflation filled the streets, while student uprisings were erupting from Japan to Germany, and from Berkeley to Harvard. That same year witnessed the crushing of the Prague Spring when the tanks of the Warsaw Pact rolled into Czechoslovakia, postponing the end of the Soviet Empire for two more melancholy decades. It was a time when rebellion and totalitarianism collided, and that experience ignited debates which defined French intellectual life for years to come.
For decades, American presidents have used their inaugural addresses to celebrate the values of freedom. At his inauguration on Friday, President Donald Trump will take to the podium to declare his aims for his next four years in office. Will he have anything to say about the importance of freedom?
From the former secretary of state and bestselling author -- a sweeping look at the global struggle for democracy and why America must continue to support the cause of human freedom.
From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, became the epicenter of the civil rights movement for black Americans.
In this book, Rice explains what these epochal events teach us about democracy. At a time when people around the world are wondering whether democracy is in decline, Rice shares insights from her experiences as a policymaker, scholar, and citizen, in order to put democracy's challenges into perspective.
When the United States was founded, it was the only attempt at self-government in the world. Today more than half of all countries qualify as democracies, and in the long run that number will continue to grow. Yet nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. Using America's long struggle as a template, Rice draws lessons for democracy around the world -- from Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, to Kenya, Colombia, and the Middle East. She finds that no transitions to democracy are the same because every country starts in a different place. Pathways diverge and sometimes circle backward. Time frames for success vary dramatically, and countries often suffer false starts before getting it right. But, Rice argues, that does not mean they should not try. While the ideal conditions for democracy are well known in academia, they never exist in the real world. The question is not how to create perfect circumstances but how to move forward under difficult ones.
These same insights apply in overcoming the challenges faced by governments today. The pursuit of democracy is a continuing struggle shared by people around the world, whether they are opposing authoritarian regimes, establishing new democratic institutions, or reforming mature democracies to better live up to their ideals. The work of securing it is never finished.
How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history
Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling--mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues--have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.
An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent--and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.
Voted into the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Nicola Sturgeon became the First Minister of Scotland in 2014 and is the first female to hold the position. She led her party to success in the Westminster and Holyrood elections, with the SNP becoming the first party in Scotland to secure a third term in government. Following the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the First Minister has been a leading voice arguing for a continuing relationship between Scotland and the European Union and an open and welcoming approach to immigration. She was ranked as the 50th most powerful woman in the world in 2016 and 2nd in the United Kingdom by Forbes magazine.
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 Walter Scheidel. Walter is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1993 and completed his Habilitation at the University of Graz in 1998 and joined the faculty at Stanford in 2003.
Walter's research focuses on ancient social and economic history, with particular emphasis on historical demography, labor, and state formation. In his recent book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, Walter explores each of these themes. In this book, Walter examines evidence from the Stone Age to the present time in order to understand the factors that lead to a substantial decrease in inequality. Walter shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Periods of increased equality are usually born of carnage and disaster and are generally short-lived, disappearing with the return of peace and stability. Specifically, he demonstrates that "Four Horsemen" — mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues — have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich, a finding that casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.
Scheidel, Walter. 2017. The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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 Jessi Piggott (Theater and Performance Studies). Jessi is a Ph.D. candidate in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University.
Funded by The Europe Center, Jessi spent August and September 2016 in Berlin, Germany conducting archival and site-specific research for her dissertation. While in Germany, Jessi's research centered on the agitprop troupes of Weimar-era Germany. Agitprop was a popular form of live entertainment that was generally both created and performed by amateur artists from Germany’s working classes. Today, the texts are generally unavailable in published form and are primarily available in the Agit-Prop-Sammlung at the Akademie der Künste Archiv in Berlin. Moreover, as Jessi learned from the head of the archive’s Performing Arts division, with the exception of a single volume from 1961, little of the material has been referred to in academic work. Jessi notes that the materials in this collection are extraordinarily diverse, and have allowed her to begin to reconstruct aspects of this fascinating theatrical tradition that have largely escaped the attention of performance scholars. An important part of this research focuses on the Bildsprache, or iconography, developed by agitprop troupes throughout the 1920s. Jessi argues that contrary to popular thought, the “heavy-handedness” and simplicity of these performances paradoxically helped to constitute a space for critical reflection, dialogue, and dissensus among spectators and performers alike.
Jessi has been awarded a DAAD Research Grant and will therefore be returning to Berlin for the 2017-2018 academic year. During that time she will conduct additional archival research and will embark upon an ethnographic exploration of contemporary performances. At this time, Jessi intends to return to Stanford for the 2018-2019 academic year in order to complete and defend her dissertation.
Please visit our website for more information about our Graduate Student Grant program.
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.
Please join us in congratulating the students selected to participate in The Europe Center’s summer 2017 Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe:
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
Ben Gardner-Gill
Michael Rover
Bruegel
Emma Abdullah
Nicholas Branigan
Lloyd Lyall
Carnegie Europe
Sima Bondi
For more information about The Europe Center’s Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe, please visit our website.
Application Deadline: April 15, 2017
In addition to the positions listed above, The Europe Center is currently accepting applications to fill the following position:
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)
Applications for this position will be accepted through April 15, 2017 and are being reviewed as received.
We invite applications from Stanford University undergraduate students interested in this exciting opportunity. For more information on The Europe Center's Undergraduate Internship Program, please visit our website.
April 6, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Damian Collins, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
Book Event: Sir Philip Sassoon - England's Gatsby, and the Jewish Leaders of Political Society Between the World Wars
Room 307, Lane History Corner (Building 200)
No RSVP required.
This book event is co-sponsored by The Europe Center, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and the Department of History.
April 6, 2017
4:15PM - 5:45PM
Damian Collins, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
Britain and Brexit
Room 302, Lane History Corner (Building 200)
No RSVP required.
This event is co-sponsored by The Europe Center, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and the Department of History.
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
Due to overwhelming response, this event is now full and we are no longer able to take further RSVPs.
April 20-25, 2017
Romanian Film Festival: "Delimmas, Decisions, Destinies - From the Imaginary to the Real Realm"
Locations vary by date.
Please visit our website for more information.
The event is presented by Stanford University's Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES) and Special Language Program (SLP); UC Berkeley's Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies; and San Francisco State's Department of Cinema and is co-sponsored by Stanford University's The Europe Center and Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures; the San Francisco Art Institute; UCLA's Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, Center for European and Eurasian Studies, and Romanian Student Club; the “Nicolae Tonitza” High School (Bucharest, Romania) and Fundatia Semn (Romania).
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.
April 26, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Alexander Stubb, Former Prime Minister of Finland and current Member of the Finnish Parliament
Life After Trump and Brexit: Will Europe Be Able to Take the Lead?
Oksenberg Conference Room, Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM April 21, 2017.
April 26, 2017
4:00PM - 5:30PM
Patrick Chamorel, Stanford University Center, Washington, D.C.
The French Elections and the Rising Political Divide
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM April 24, 2017.
April 28-29, 2017
Abbasi Program's 2017 Annual Conference
Understanding Turkey: Vision, Revision, and the Future
Venue information will be provided to the confirmed RSVPs.
RSVP required.
This conference is organized by the Abbasi Program and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center, Stanford Mediterranean Studies, CDDRL Arab Reform & Democracy Program, Stanford Global Studies Division, and CDDRL.
May 12-13, 2017
Iberian Studies Program Conference
Inscribed Identities: Writing as Self Realization
Stanford Humanities Center
Please visit our website for more information.
This conference is co-sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, the Stanford Humanities Center, and The Europe Center's Iberian Studies Program.
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.
April 10, 2017
12:00PM - 1:15PM
Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Bulgaria
The Imitation Imperative
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
Due to overwhelming response, this event is now full and we are no longer able to take further RSVPs.
April 19, 2017
12:00PM - 1:15PM
Alina Polyakova, Atlantic Council
The Kremlin's Trojan Horses? Russia and the European Far Right
Reuben Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall East, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM April 17, 2017.
April 25, 2017
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Former President of the Republic of Estonia and Visiting Fellow at CISAC
A Panel Discussion - Bits and Pieces: Liberal Democracy in the Digital Era
CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
RSVP by 5:00PM April 20, 2017.
This event is co-sponsored by The European Security Initiative (The Europe Center), CISAC, and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES).
Save the Date: May 15, 2017
12:00PM - 1:15PM
Ivo Daalder, Former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO
RSVP by 5:00PM May 10, 2017.
Save the Date: May 22, 2017
12:00PM - 1:15PM
Mark Leonard, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations
RSVP by 5:00PM May 17, 2017.
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.
