Stanford University

Democracy

Democratic Politics in the European Parliament

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Professor Roland examines party politics, particularly in the context of the European parliament. Using key research throughout, he examines where loyalties lie, what affects these loyalties, and what the makeup is of the European parliament. Prof. Roland also takes a brief look at how this compares to national politics in different countries.

Synopsis

Prof. Roland explains that roll call analysis has long been an obsolete method of estimating politicians’ true values. This is mainly due to party politics. Legislative behavior, which is what Prof. Roland explores primarily in this talk, is offered a very rich platform for study in the European parliament, which consists of representative parties from 27 countries which also form into European parties. Prof. Roland explains that loyalties can lie with one’s national party, European party, and country. However, there is no reason for them to overlap. Because the European parliament plays very little role in elections in the nations of Europe, Prof. Roland argues that parties vote almost purely for legislative decision-making purposes. Prof. Roland also cites that voting for the EU parliament is not like a parliamentary democracy because nobody is put into power. In addition, he notes that the European Parliament has had a shifting role as time has passed, going from a consultative position to a probable vetoing power, as Prof. Roland predicts.

These numerous aspects of the European parliament raise several questions for Prof. Roland. He explores the strength of party cohesion within the parliament and methods used to enhance it such as disciplining those who vote against the party of contentious issues or giving signals of unification. Prof. Roland also examines what he explains as the ‘agreement index’ to investigate where members vote; for their national party, their European party, or their country. This rating, which has continually lowered, indicates that more vote for their national parties than member states or European parties. Prof. Roland is also interested in whether members’ votes are influenced more by their personal values or the party discipline effect.

Prof. Roland comes to a variety of interesting conclusions. He sees that there is overlap when members of the European parliament place themselves on the left-right scale. However, no such overlap is present in their voting patterns, showing clear evidence of the effect of party discipline. Prof. Roland finds that bigger parties, because they are more pivotal, are more cohesive as there is more at stake in their unity. On the other hand, national fractionalization has a negative effect of cohesion while ideological diversity plays almost no role in determining the extent of party cohesiveness in the European parliament. Employing a variety of statistics, Prof. Roland shows that the increase in the parliament’s power has also increased party cohesiveness. Therefore, Prof. Roland believes that while disagreement has increased in the European parliament, party cohesion has increased but not for ideological reasons. He ends by explaining that the role of ideology is in forming party coalitions in a parliament whose dimensions consist mainly of left and right.

About the Speaker

Gerard Roland is professor of economics and political science at University of California, Berkeley. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Universite Libre de Bruxelles in 1988. He is the author of five books, including Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets and Firms, published by MIT Press in 2000.

Sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Graduate School of Business.

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Gerard Roland Professor of Economics and Political Science Speaker UC Berkeley
Seminars

Roland Hsu

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Affiliate
Hsu.jpg PhD

Roland Hsu is director of research of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project.

Hsu’s research is dedicated to bringing creative and multi-disciplinary thinking to the challenges of international cultural dialogue, and post-conflict peace and reconciliation.  His own research focuses on migration and ethnic identity formation.  His publications combine humanistic and social science methods and materials to answer what displaces peoples, how do societies respond to migration, and what are the experiences of resettlement. 

Currently he is pursuing the subject of displaced peoples, with plans to publish three books.  The three books address ethnicity, migration, and diaspora.  His first book, “Ethnic Europe: Mobility, Identity, and Conflict in a Globalized World” (Stanford University Press, 2010) revealed what it means to lay claim to ethnic difference in the traditional national cultures of Europe.  “Ethnic Europe” combines essays by leading scholars whom Hsu with research partners brought to Stanford.  The book is edited and begins with an essay by Hsu on how we think about ethnicity, and why recognizing ethnicity unsettles social tradition in increasingly globalized Europe.  Hsu continues to foster public questioning of the meaning and use of ethnicity by sponsoring programming on European political and cultural initiatives, and with blog postings on diversity policy and the politics of immigration in such publications as Le Monde Diplomatique.

Hsu’s second book, “Migration and Integration: New Models for Mobility and Coexistence” (University of Vienna Press, 2016) asks what displaces people, and how do migrants return or resettle.  Co-edited with Christoph Reinprecht (University of Vienna) “Migration and Integration” compares international and internal migration in East and South-East Asia, North Africa and Southern Europe, Western and Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia.  Based on Hsu’s design with faculty partners of a series of visiting fellowships, workshops, and an international conference, Hsu and Reinprecht invited scholars from multiple disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences to contribute to this volume on the history, politics, and culture of migration and integration in an illuminating East-West comparison.

His third book in this series of studies on displaced peoples is “Global Diaspora: Communities of Mind and Place”, co-edited with Dag Blanck (Uppsala University) from Oxford University Press (in process).  Essays in this book will ask how models of resettled communities and diasporas should be revised to help us understand today’s migrant experience.  Combining thirty historical and contemporary case studies, this book on “Diaspora” to be published in the Oxford University Press Handbook series, will help us rethink what has been the consequence of labeling a migrant community as a diaspora, why contemporary displacements due to war, poverty, and climate change disperse peoples more widely, and how we can understand the emerging experience of real and virtual migrant communities.

A fourth project under consideration in this series will be a web-based, curated and dynamic clearing house of the new thinking from scholars, policy leaders, and non-governmental actors on migration and refugees in national, regional, and trans-national settings.

Hsu developed this interest through his teaching and lecturing at Stanford, the University of Chicago, and European universities, and working with scholars, and policy and civil society leaders who have been invited to co-sponsored programming.  Working with Stanford and international university, government, and NGO partners, the list of co-sponsored conferences, workshops, seminars, and public events includes:

  • Authors and artists: Ian McEwan, Orhan Pamuk, Aris Fioretos.
  • Conferences/workshops/seminars: Stanford Faculty Working Group on Responding to Refugees; New thinking on Nobel Laureate Nelly Sachs; Diversity and Community in Sweden in film and the arts; Writings and Response to Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Roundtable on Salmon Rushdie’s “Joseph Anton: A Memoir”; Hannah Arendt in the Humanities; Ethnic Europe; Conscience; Democracy in Adversity and Diversity; Migration and Integration
  • Scholars/Analysts: Francis Fukuyama, Vali Nasr, Olivier Roy, Timothy Garton Ash, Istvan Deak
  • Journalists: John Micklethwait (Editor, the Economist), Josef Joffe (Die Zeit), Frederick Mitterand. 
  • Policy leaders: Catherine Ashton (EU High Representative and Vice President), Jan Eliasson (former UN Secretary General), Jonathan Phillips (Permanent Secretary, UK Northern Ireland Office), Lionel Jospin (former French Prime Minister), Daniel Cohen Bendit, European Ambassadors to the US, Foreign Ministers and Presidents from Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Algeria, Ukraine, Spain, Basque Region

Hsu’s previous research and teaching explored a wide range of historical and cultural ruptures.  At the University of Chicago, Hsu taught courses on literature and the visual arts (including themes of “evil”, “revolution”, and the authorial “other” in world literature).  His dissertation on public monuments, history texts, and the political use of the French Revolution reveals the role of history and revolution in legitimizing modern French regimes.  This research inspires his work on conflict and reconciliation in Europe.

At the University of Idaho, Hsu was Assistant Professor of History, completing research on visual representations of revolution and reception theory in nineteenth-century France, and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on nineteenth-century European intellectual and political history, world history (ancient through modern), empire, colonial and post-colonial eras, and the French Revolution.

At Stanford, Hsu was awarded a three-year Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in the Introduction to Humanities Program.  Serving as a Fellow he conducted research on collective memory, and was inspired by Stanford faculty and students to turn his focus to post-conflict and post-atrocity research.  He has increasingly focused on investigating the history and future of post-conflict studies and models for truth and reconciliation and emancipation, using material and methods from the humanities (history, philosophy, literary criticism, visual arts) and the social sciences (political science, sociology, anthropology.)

Hsu has more than twelve years of administrative leadership experience.  At FSI Hsu teamed with staff and faculty to build the Europe Center from its founding as the European Forum, to its growth into the Forum on Contemporary Europe, and ultimately a research center at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Hsu’s contributions to the growth of the Europe Center included building multiple research scholar exchange and fellowships (with new funding) for residencies at the Europe Center.  Hsu also cultivated institutional partnerships with more than six European universities for on-going cooperative programming and scholar exchange.

Currently, Hsu is Director of Research for the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. 

Previously at Stanford, Hsu has held the following appointments:

  • Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Center
  • Associate Director of the Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Global Studies
  • Project Director, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages
  • Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Advising and Research
  • Acting Associate Director of the Introduction to Humanities Program
  • Post-doctoral Fellow, Introduction to Humanities Program
  • Research Coordinator, Program in Writing and Rhetoric

Hsu earned his Ph.D. in Modern European History at the University of Chicago.  He holds an M.A. in Art History from Chicago, and a dual B.A. in Art History and also English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Director of Research
Affiliate, The Europe Center

Europe Now: Integration, Society, and Islam in a New Europe

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Cosponsored by the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies

Daniel Cohn-Bendit was born in France and spent his childhood in Paris. He moved to Germany in 1958 but later returned to France to study sociology at the University of Nanterre. It was here in 1968 that he first became known as a spokesperson and student leader during the May Revolution in Paris. He was subsequently expelled from France and he settled in Frankfurt where he was an active member of the Sponti scene which exercised a social revolution in the 1970s. Growing from this scene was the alternative urban magazine "Pflasterstrand", of which Cohn-Bendit served as the editor and publisher. It was here that he began taking part in eco-struggles against nuclear energy and the expansion of the Frankfurt airport. The Sponti movement officially accepted parliamentary democracy in 1984 and Cohn-Bendit joined the German Green Party. In 1989, he became deputy mayor of Frankfurt, in charge of multicultural affairs. Since January of 2002, he has served as co-president of the Greens/Free European Alliance Group in the European Parliament. He is a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and a member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. In addition to his political activities, Cohn-Bendit was the host of the "Literaturclub" show for Swiss TV station DRS for 10 years, and he is an author of several books including the most recent, Quand tu seras président, written with Bernard Kouchner and published in April 2004.

http://www.cohn-bendit.com/

Bechtel Conference Center

Daniel Cohn-Bendit Co-president Speaker the Greens/Free European Alliance Group, European Parliament
Lectures

European Forum 2005-06 Year Update

Authors
Christophe Crombez
News Type
News
Date
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The European Forum at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University had an eventful and exciting 2005-06 academic year. We organized almost thirty seminars, workshops and other events on cultural, economic and political issues affecting Europe, its relations with the United States and its role in the world.

We hosted several prominent politicians and diplomats during the academic year. In October John Bruton, European Union Ambassador to the United States and former Prime Minister of Ireland (1994-97), presented his views on Europe and the United States as global partners. Earlier during the Fall we were honored to welcome Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Artis Pabriks. He gave a lecture on Latvia's current challenges in foreign policy and homeland security.

During the Winter term Estonian President Arnold Rüütel visited Stanford. In his talk he addressed such issues as Estonia's relations with the United States, the European Union and Russia. Andras Simonyi, Hungarian Ambassador to the United States, also visited the European Forum. He presented a fascinating lecture on the political and economic situation in Hungary two years into its EU membership. Three more diplomats gave talks during the Winter Quarter. Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, spoke about the United States, Europe and the broader Middle East. Dominic Martin, Counsellor at the British Embassy in Washington, talked about the United Kingdom and its current challenges and opportunities in world politics. Richard Morningstar, former United States Ambassador to the European Union, Lecturer at the Stanford Law School and European Forum Research Affiliate, presented his insights into the cooperation between the United States and the European Union in counter-terrorism. This last seminar was part of a series of events the European Forum organized on the manners in which European countries and institutions are dealing with the threat of terrorism, following the attacks in Madrid and London.

The War on Terror was also among the issues addressed by Joschka Fischer, former German Foreign Minister (1998-2005). He visited the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in April and gave a 2006 Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecture for a standing room only crowd at the Bechtel Conference Center at Encina Hall. He talked about Europe's prospects in a globalized world and the future of transatlantic relations. British Ambassador Sir David Manning gave an equally well-attended and equally impressive 2006 Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecture on energy as a burning issue in foreign policy.

Other events organized on the topic of counter-terrorism included a round-table discussion on anti-terrorism finance, by Jacob Shapiro, Laura Donohue and Khalid Medani, all affiliated to Stanford University, and a lecture on the French experience of counter-terrorism by Jeremy Shapiro from the Brookings Institution. The series of events culminated with a lecture and a seminar by prolific author and columnist Christopher Hitchens. During a visit to the European Forum in May he presented his fascinating and thought-provoking views on the war on terror, and the situation in Iraq and Iran. The series of events on terrorism is to continue during the next academic year and will culminate with a Thinking Terrorism conference in late 2007.

Furthermore, we organized a number of events on other political issues. German sociologist Heinz Bude, from the University of Kassel, presented his views on the most recent German elections from a broad, societal and historical perspective, paying attention to the 1968 student uprisings and their long-term impact on German society. Christian Deubner, from the CEPII research center in Paris, shared his opinions on current developments in French politics, with a focus on the French rejection of the EU Constitution earlier this year and its impact on France's position in the EU. German author Peter Schneider offered his reflections on the cultural differences between Europe and the United States. He compared the relationship between the two continents to a marriage that has its ups and downs, but endures. Josef Joffe, Editor of the German newspaper Die Zeit, pointed at cultural, demographic, political and economic reasons to argue that the European Union is not about to become a new superpower.

Ken Kollman, from the University of Michigan, presented a political-economic model of leadership in federations and applied it to the EU. Bert Martens, an economist at the EU Commission in Brussels, presented an analysis of the EU's export of political and economic institutions to its neighboring countries, and the incentives it provides for regime change. Markus Hadler, a sociologist at the University of Graz and visiting professor at the European Forum during the past academic year, offered an appraisal of democracy in Europe.

Simon Hug, from the University of Zürich, presented a political-economic model of the negotiations for an EU constitution. Yaron Deckel, from the European Broadcasting Service, talked about the most recent Israeli Elections. Cas Mudde, from the University of Antwerp, presented a talk on immigration and the success of populist parties in the Low Countries. Piet Jan Slot, from Leiden University, gave a seminar on the EU's plans for an internal market for services.

We also organized a number of seminars dealing with various aspects of World War II and its aftermath. There was a talk on the effects of the Europeanization of the holocaust on the attitudes toward Jews, by Werner Bergmann from the Technische Universität Berlin. Monica Siegel, from California State University, Sacramento, gave a presentation on memory and reconciliation in France and Germany. Richard Evans, from Cambridge University, talked about coercion and consent in Nazi Germany. Wolfgang Eichwede, from the University of Bremen, gave a seminar on the dissident movement and Samizdat culture in Eastern Europe. Holocaust survivor Leopold Engleitner and his biographer Bernhard Rammerstorfer talked about surviving Buchenwald as a Jehova's Witness. Martina Pottek, from Bonn University, gave a presentation about artistic concepts to commemorate the holocaust.

Andreas Dorschel, Professor at the University of Graz, and Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at the European Forum during the past academic year, presented a lecture on Bruckner and the 19th century fates of origin.

As the next academic year draws near, we anticipate many more prominent speakers to visit the European Forum. Included in our schedule is the Europe Now lecture featuring Daniel Cohn-Bendit in November 2006.

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Populist Parties and Immigration in the Low Countries

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Cas Mudde is a senior lecturer and vice-chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Antwerp. He is also the co-founder and convener of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy. Mr. Mudde is the co-editor of the Routledge Studies in Extremism & Democracy book series, which has covered topics such as terrorism in the United States, extremism and terrorism, freedom of speech, and extreme right activists. His current project is a research monograph entitled Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. From January through June of 2006, Mr. Mudde has been a Fulbright EU Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for Comparative European Studies and the Department of Political Science of Rutgers University. He is teaching an undergraduate course on "Radical Right Politics in Western Democracies" as well as leading a series of workshops on "Contentious and Extreme politics" for graduate students.

Mr. Mudde received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Leiden. Prior to joining the University of Antwerp in July 2002, he taught at the Central European University and the University of Edinburgh. Additionally, Mr. Mudde has held visiting positions at New York University, Univerzita Karlova, University Jaume I, and the University of California Santa Barbara.

Encina Basement Conference Room

Cas Mudde Speaker University of Antwerp
Seminars

U.S., Europe, and the Broader Middle East: Security through Democracy

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Frontiers of Freedom: U.S. - European cooperation on Iran, NATO in Afghanistan, and other issues the United States and Europe are tackling in the region.

Co-Sponsored with the Hoover Institution

Encina Basement Conference Room

Kurt Volker Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Speaker Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Seminars

The Appraisal of Democracy in Europe: Institutions and Modernization

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This talk scrutinizes the relationship between individual attitudes towards democracy and such contextual characteristics as the institutional framework and the level of socioeconomic development. For this purpose the individual evaluation of a democratic rule, experts rule, army rule, and a strong leader rule is considered. The analysis discovers a strong relationship between the individual political attitudes and different contextual factors. In particular, it turns out that pre-democratic views vary at both the national and the regional level. Democratic values, on the other hand, are rather evenly distributed within countries but also vary among countries. One finding is that the socioeconomic level has a strong impact on the occurrence of pre-democratic values. For those holding strong democratic beliefs, institutional factors such as the absence of an authoritarian regime in the recent past become more important than the socioeconomic level.

Encina Basement Conference Room

Markus Hadler Speaker University of Graz
Seminars

Marinés Fornerino

Encina Hall, C152
616 Serra Street
Stanford CA 94305-6055

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Universidad Rafael Urdaneta, Department of Political Science
fornerinophotocopy.jpg MA, PhD

Marinés Fornerino is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Rafael Urdaneta in Maracaibo, Venezuela. She received a joint Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from Indiana University in 2002.

Project Summary

One Hundred Years of Liberalism centers on Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez, addressing democracy, political theory, and the Venezuelan experience, particularly over the last two years. The book focuses on the idea that democracy itself is being refashioned in a way that is more communitarian than neoliberal. The project not only traces how this plays out theoretically, but -- by examining the new Venezuelan constitution, the social projects and missions of the Chávez government, and the speeches and writings of President Chávez himself -- explores how, in practice, democracy can be understood divorced of its liberal roots.

Humanities and International Studies (HIS) Fellow

The Remaking of Austria After World War II: Occupation, Identity, and Society, 1945-55

June 4, Friday

9:00-9:30

Continental Breakfast

9:30-10:00

Opening remarks by Norman Naimark and Amir Eshel

10:00-12:30

Panel I: The Meaning of the Allied Occupation for Austrian History

Chair: Norman Naimark, Stanford University

Speaker: Michael Gehler, Innsbruck University, "Still 'Occupied' by Germany, 1945-1955"

Speaker: Oliver Rathkolb, Democracy Centre, Vienna, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society, "The 'Allied Occupation' and the Collective Memory of Austrians after 1945"

Speaker: Guenter Bischof, University of New Orleans, "The Meaning of the Allied Occupation for Austrian History"

12:30-2:00

Lunch

2:00-4:30

Panel II: Society and Culture in Four-Power Austria

Chair: Amir Eshel, Stanford University

Speaker: Wendelin Schmidt-Denger, University of Vienna, "Austria 1945-1948-1995: Literature"

Speaker: Kristin Rebien, Stanford University, "Beyond the Dream: Paul Celan on Postwar Austrian Surrealism"

Speaker: Matti Bunzl, University of Illinois, Urbana, "Thinking the Center through the Margins: Jews and Homosexuals in Post-World War II Austria"

June 5, Saturday

9:00-9:30

Continental Breakfast

9:30-12:00

Panel II: The Soviet Factor

Chair: David Holloway, Stanford University

Speaker: Vojtech Mastny, Wilson Center, Washington D.C., "The Soviet Factor in the Remaking of Austria after World War II"

Speaker: Wolfgang Mueller, University of Vienna, "Some Aspects of the Political Mission of the USSR in Austria, 1943-45"

Speaker: Gennady Bordiugov, AIRO-XX Publishers, Russia, "Germany and Austria: View from the USSR"

Speaker: Norman Naimark, Stanford University, "Stalin and the Austrian Question"

12:00-1:00

Lunch

1:00-3:20

Panel IV: Central European Perspectives

Chair: Ludger Kuenhardt, Bonn University

Speaker: Arnold Suppan, University of Vienna, "Austria and Its Neighbors in the East, 1945-1948"

Speaker: Dietrich Orlow, Boston University, "Austria and Germany after World War II: Similarities and Differences Protocol"

Speaker: Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz, "Hungary, 1945-1948"

3:40-4:00

General Discussions

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Workshops
Austria in the Postwar World
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