Stanford University

Borders

Mind the Gap? The International Sources of Sovereignty and State Weakness

-

Abstract: 

Why have some developing countries faced persistent challenges at extending state authority throughout their territories? The consequences of incomplete governance are often severe in terms of public order, public goods, and economic growth, which raise the question of why ungoverned spaces remain without effective authority. Although there are many reasons why states leave broad swathes of their territory ungoverned, existing scholarship has overlooked the role of international politics. This dissertation demonstrates the importance of international factors in accounting for variation in state weakness, and argues that enemy states can subvert or deter the exercise of state authority near the borders of their neighbors. External interference can create or sustain ungoverned spaces in the target state, and yields policy benefits to the enemy state. Drawing on original data and a new measure of state authority, I support this argument with a cross-national statistical analysis that examines variation within countries, and a natural experiment from the case of Thailand that identifies the causal effect of hostile neighbors on state authority.


Speaker Bio:

lee
Melissa Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. Her research interests bridge the subfields of international relations and comparative politics, and include the international causes and consequences of state weakness; statebuilding; conflict and security; and political and economic development. Her dissertation asks why some developing states leave parts of their territory ungoverned, and argues that state weakness near state borders is a function of hostile regional neighborhoods. Specifically, she argues that neighboring states can subvert or deter the exercise of state authority, resulting in the emergence or persistence of ungoverned space. She employs a variety of methods in her research, including statistical methods, quasi-experimental techniques, geospatial analysis, archival research, and field interviews.

Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Freeman Spogli Institute, and other research centers at Stanford University. She is a former research consultant for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

Seminars

Book Workshop: "Dilemmas of Inclusion: Votes, Values, and the Political Representation of Muslims in Europe" by Rafaela Dancygier

-

Workshop on Rafaela Dancygier's latest book manuscript titled "Dilemmas of Inclusion: Votes, Values, and the Political Representation of Muslims in Europe." 

Discussants:

  • Chapter 1: David Laitin (Stanford)
  • Chapter 2:  Ken Scheve (Stanford)
  • Chapter 3:  Jonathan Rodden (Stanford)
  • Chapter 4: Anna Grzymala-Busse (University of Michigan)
  • Chapter 5:  Dan Posner (UCLA)
  • Chapter 6:  Thad Dunning (UC Berkeley)

Agenda:

  • 8:30am – 9:00am      Breakfast
  • 9:00am – 10:30am    Chapters 1 and 2
  • 10:30am – 11:00am  Coffee Break
  • 11:00am – 12:45pm  Chapters 3 and 4
  • 12:45am – 2:00pm    Lunch
  • 2:00pm – 3:45pm      Chapters 5 and 6
  • 3:45pm – 4:00pm      Coffee Break
  • 4:00pm – 4:30pm      Synthesis
  • 6:00pm - 8:00p         Dinner

Reuben Hills Conference Room
Encina Hall East, 2nd floor

Rafaela Dancygier Assistant professor, Politics and Public and International Affairs Participant Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Professor of political science and director of The Europe Center Discussant Stanford University

David Laitin

Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Encina Hall, W423
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 725-9556 (650) 723-1808
0
James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science
laitin.jpg
PhD

David Laitin is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science and a co-director of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford. He has conducted field research in Somalia, Nigeria, Spain, Estonia and France. His principal research interest is on how culture – specifically, language and religion – guides political behavior. He is the author of “Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-heritage Societies” and a series of articles on immigrant integration, civil war and terrorism. Laitin received his BA from Swarthmore College and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science Discussant Stanford University

Jonathan Rodden

616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

0
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
Rodden_current_hi-res.jpg

Jonathan Rodden is professor of political science at Stanford, director of the Spatial Social Science Lab, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.  He has written several articles and a pair of books on federalism and fiscal decentralization, and continues to work on issues related to state and local government finance around the world.  His most recent work focuses on economic and political geography in North America, Europe, and beyond.  He published a book on the topic in 2019, entitled Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. 

Rodden has several ongoing research projects with collaborators in Europe, including a new project on comparative federalism at the University of Salzburg.  He spent the winter of 2013 as a visiting scholar at the Juan March Institute in Madrid while also teaching in Stanford’s Madrid Bing Overseas Program.

Rodden received his PhD from Yale University and his BA from the University of Michigan, and was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Ford Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. 

Rodden's research was featured in The Europe Center February 2018 Newsletter.

Director of the Spatial Social Science Lab
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
CV
Professor of political science, director of the Spatial Social Science Lab, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution Discussant Stanford University
Dan Posner James S. Coleman Professor of International Development, Department of Political Science Discussant UC Los Angeles
Thad Dunning Robson Professor of Political Science Discussant UC Berkeley
Anna Grzymala-Busse Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies in the Department of Political Science Discussant University of Michigan
Workshops

Europe-Russia Relations: The Impact of EU Expansion

-

 

Please click on the image below to view the video recording of this event.

 

 

Co-sponsored by The Europe Center and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

 

Barnes/McDowell/Cranston Room
Fisher Conference Center at the Arrillaga Alumni Center

Miroslav Lajcak Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Speaker Slovak Republic

Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

0
Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
2022-mcfaul-headshot.jpg
PhD

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. He is currently writing a book called Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today.

He teaches courses on great power relations, democratization, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and revolutions.

Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. In International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. His DPhil thesis was Southern African Liberation and Great Power Intervention: Towards a Theory of Revolution in an International Context.

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
Read more

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
Read More

Multimedia

World Class · A Democracy Activist Explains Georgia's Current Political Crisis and Turbulent History
All people Back to top
CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow, the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution Speaker Stanford University

Norman M. Naimark

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-6927 (650) 725-0597
0
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
Professor of History
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Naimark,_Norman.jpg
MS, PhD

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Hide publication sections
Off
The Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division and Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies Speaker Stanford University
Kathryn Stoner Faculty Director, Susan Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute Speaker Stanford University

"Divided Memories" reviewed in "China Perspectives"

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Yves Russell, reviewing Shorenstein APARC's Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia for the 2014/2 issue of China Perspectives, says that the volume "makes two major contributions to existing literature on the problem of history textbooks in East Asia" with its parallel excerpts from textbooks on eight controversial themes and its "inclusion of American textbooks" in the debate on historical memories in Asia. Russell continues to note that "one of the book's great strengths [is showing that] Japanese textbooks do not highlight patriotism, revisionism, or nationalism or seek to justify the war—rather the contrary." 

Divided Memories is just one of the outputs of a multi-year history project on the effects of historical memories on postwar reconciliation. Most recently released was Wartime History Issues in Asia: Pathways to Reconciliation Final Report, a summary report of a Track II dialogue on the continuing impact of wartime history issues.

Hero Image
All News button
1

European immigrants to America in early 20th century assimilated successfully, Stanford economist says

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an "open borders" United States absorbed millions of European immigrants in one of the largest mass migrations ever. New research by Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky challenges the perception that immigrants lagged behind native-born Americans in job pay and career growth.
 

BY CLIFTON B. PARKER

European immigrants to America during the country's largest migration wave in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had earnings comparable to native-born Americans, contrary to the popular perception, according to new Stanford research.

"Our paper challenges conventional wisdom and prior research about immigrant assimilation during this period," said Ran Abramitzky, an associate professor of economics at Stanford, faculty affiliate of The Europe Center and author of the research paper in the Journal of Political Economy.

New research challenges conventional wisdom about immigrant assimilation during the bygone era of open borders and mass migration.
Photo Credit: Lewis Hine/Library of Congress
New research challenges conventional wisdom about immigrant assimilation during the bygone era of open borders and mass migration.

Abramitzky and his colleagues found the average immigrant in that period did not face a substantial "earnings penalty" – lower pay than native-born workers – upon their arrival.

"The initial earnings penalty is overstated," said Abramitzky.

He said the conventional view is that the average European immigrants held substantially lower-paying jobs than native-born Americans upon first arrival and caught up with natives' earnings after spending some time in the United States. But that perception does not hold up to the facts, he said.

Abramitzky's co-authors include Leah Platt Boustan from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Katherine Eriksson from California Polytechnic State University.

The researchers examined records on 21,000 natives and immigrants from 16 European countries in U.S. Census Bureau data from 1900 to 1910 to 1920.

"Even when U.S. borders were open, the average immigrant who ended up settling in the United States over the long term held occupations that commanded pay similar to that of U.S. natives upon first arrival," Abramitzky said.

In that bygone era of "open borders," Abramitzky said, native-born Americans were concerned that immigrants were not assimilating properly into society – yet, on the whole, this concern appears to be unfounded. "Such concerns are echoed in today's debate over immigration policy," he added.

At the same time, Abramitzky said that immigrants from poorer countries started out with lower paid occupations relative to natives and did not manage to close this gap over time.

"This pattern casts doubt on the conventional view that, in the past, immigrants who arrived with few skills were able to invest in themselves and succeed in the U.S. economy within a single generation," Abramitzky and his colleagues wrote.

Age of migration

America took in more than 30 million immigrants during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), a period when the country had open borders. By 1910, 22 percent of the U.S. labor force – and 38 percent of workers in non-southern cities – was foreign-born (compared with 17 percent today).

As the research showed, immigrants then were more likely than natives to settle in states with a high-paying mix of occupations. Location choice was an important strategy they used to achieve occupational parity with native-born Americans.

"This Age of Mass Migration not only is of interest in itself, as one of the largest migration waves in modern history, but also is informative about the process of immigrant assimilation in a world without migration restrictions," Abramitzky said.

Over time, many of the immigrants came from the poorer regions of southern and eastern Europe.

Abramitzky pointed out that native-born Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were concerned about poverty in immigrant neighborhoods and low levels of education among children, many of whom left school early to work in industry.

Consequently, American political progressives championed a series of reforms, including U.S. child labor laws and compulsory schooling requirements.

Still, some natives believed that new arrivals would never fit into American society. And so, in 1924, Congress set a strict quota of 150,000 immigrant arrivals per year, with more slots allocated to immigrants from northern and western European countries than those from southern and eastern Europe.

But those early-20th-century fears of unassimilated immigrants were baseless, according to Abramitzky.

"Our results indicate that these concerns were unfounded: The average long-term immigrants in this era arrived with skills similar to those of natives and experienced identical rates of occupational upgrading over their life cycle," he wrote.

How does this lesson apply to today's immigration policy discussion? Should the numbers of immigrants and their countries of origin be limited and those with higher skills be given more entry slots?

Abramitzky said stereotyping immigrants has affected the political nature of the contemporary debate.

"These successful outcomes suggest that migration restrictions are not always necessary to ensure strong migrants' performance in the labor market," he said.

Hero Image
All News button
1

Comparative Approaches to the Study of Immigration, Ethnicity, and Religion

PROGRAM
Friday May 9, 2014

9:00am Introduction

9:10am Does Naturalization Foster the Political Integration of Immigrants? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Switzerland
Jens Hainmueller & Dominik Hangartner
Discussant: Rafaela Dancygier

9:50am Lingua Franca: How Language Shapes the Direction of Public Opinion
Efrén Pérez
Discussant: Rahsaan Maxwell

10:30am BREAK

10:50am Transnational Ties and Support for International Redistribution
Lauren Prather
Discussant: Ali Valenzuela

11:30am Gender-Based Stereotyping and Negotiation Performance: an Experimental Study
Jorge Bravo
Discussant: Rob Ford

12:10pm BREAK

1:00pm The Rhetoric of Closed Borders: Quotas, Lax Enforcement and Illegal Migration
Giovanni Facchini & Cecilia Testa
Discussant: Karen Jusko

1:40pm Varieties of Diaspora Management
Harris Mylonas
Discussant: Yotam Margalit

2:20pm BREAK

2:40pm The Situational Context of Attitudes Towards Immigrant-Origin Minorities
Rahsaan Maxwell
Discussant: Jorge Bravo

3:20pm The Politics of Churchgoing and its Consequences among Whites, Blacks and Latinos in the U.S.
Ali Valenzuela
Discussant: Cara Wong

 

Saturday May 10, 2014

9:50am How State Support of Religion Shapes Religious Attitudes Toward Muslims
Mark Helbling
Discussant: Sara Goodman

10:30am BREAK

10:50am Opposition to Race Targeted Policies – Ideology or Racism? Particular or Universal? Experimental Evidence from Britain
Rob Ford
Discussant: Jens Hainmueller

11:30am Conflict and Consensus on American Public Opinion on Illegal Immigration
Matthew Wright
Discussant: Efrén Pérez

12:10pm BREAK

1:00pm The Electoral Geography of American Immigration, 1880-1900
Karen Jusko
Discussant: Dan Hopkins

1:40pm Do We Really Know That Employers Want Illegal Immigration?
Maggie Peters
Discussant: Giovanni Facchini

2:20pm BREAK

2:40pm Nurture over Nature: Explaining Muslim Integration Discrepancies in Britain, France and the United States
Justin Gest
Discussant: Claire Adida

3:20pm Immigration and Electoral Appeals over the Past Half Century: A Sketch of the Evidence
Rafaela M. Dancygier & Yotam Margalit
Discussant: Cecilia Testa

4:00pm Looking Ahead

CISAC Conference Room
Encina Hall Central, 2nd floor
616 Serra St.
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
 

Karen Jusko Assistant Professor of Political Science Participant and Workshop Organizer Stanford University
Claire Adida Participant UC San Diego
Jorge Bravo Participant Rutgers University
Rafaela Dancygier Participant Princeton University
Giovanni Facchini Participant University of Nottingham
Robert Ford Participant University of Manchester
Justin Gest Participant Harvard University
Sara Wallace Goodman Participant UC Irvine
Participant Stanford University
Dominik Hangartner Participant London School of Economics and Political Science
Marc Helbling Participant WZB Berlin Social Science Center
Dan Hopkins Participant Georgetown University
Yotam Margalit Participant Columbia University
Rahsaan Maxwell Participant UNC at Chapel Hill
Harris Mylonas Participant George Washington University
Efrén O. Pérez Participant Vanderbilt University
Maggie Peters Participant Yale University
Lauren Prather Participant Stanford University
Judith Spirig Participant University of Zurich
Cecilia Testa Participant Royal Holloway University of London
Ali A. Valenzuela Participant Princeton University
Cara Wong Participant University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Matthew Wright Participant American University (Washington, D.C.)
Workshops

The Europe Center May 2014 Newsletter

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Recap:  The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World

 
On April 30, May 1, and May 2, 2014, Adam Tooze, Barton M. Briggs Professor of History at Yale University, delivered in three parts The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World, the first of an annual series. 
 
With the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War as his backdrop, Tooze spoke about the history of the transformation of the global power structure that followed from Germany’s decision to provoke America’s declaration of war in 1917. He advanced a powerful explanation for why the First World War rearranged political and economic structures across Eurasia and the British Empire, sowed the seeds of revolution in Russia and China, and laid the foundations of a new global order that began to revolve around the United States. 
 
The three lectures focused successively on diplomatic, economic, and social aspects of the troubled interwar history of Europe and its relationship with the wider world. Over the course of the lectures, he presented an argument for why the fate of effectively the whole of civilization changed in 1917, and why the First World War’s legacy continues to shape our world even today.
 
Tooze also participated in a lunchtime question-and-answer roundtable with graduate students from the History department.
 
Image of Yale's Barton M. Briggs Professor of History Adam Tooze, speaking at Stanford University, May 2, 2014Tooze is the author of The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy(2006) and Statistics and the German State 1900-1945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001), among numerous other scholarly articles on modern European history. His latest book, The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916-1931, will be released in Summer 2014 in the United Kingdom and in Fall 2014 in the United States.
 
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details about this event.
 
 

Recap:  European Commission President José Barroso Visits Stanford

 
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, delivered a lecture entitled, “Global Europe: From the Atlantic to the Pacific,” before an audience at Stanford on May 1, 2014. 
 
Barroso discussed at length the political and economic consequences of the global financial crisis of 2008 for European affairs. He acknowledged that the crisis revealed “serious flaws” in the economic management of some national economies, but stressed that the 28-member union adapted and reformed to handle the fallout from the crisis. For example, he explained how banking supervision is now controlled at the “European level through the European Central Bank,” and that “there are common rules for banks so that we avoid having to use taxpayers' money to rescue them." 
 
Barroso also discussed various political and security aspects related to the ongoing upheaval in Ukraine, and affirmed that Europe “stands ready” to support the country as it comes “closer to the European Union.” He added that Russia’s decision “to interfere, to destabilize, and to occupy part of the territory of a neighboring country” was a “gesture that we hoped was long buried in history books.”
 
Image of José Manuel Barroso, President of the European CommissionBarroso was named President of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) of Portugal in 1999, following which he was re-elected three times. He was appointed Prime Minister of Portugal in 2002. He remained in office until July 2004 when he was elected by the European Parliament to the post of President of the European Commission. He was re-elected to a second term as President of the European Commission by an absolute majority in the European Parliament in September 2009.
 
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details about this event.
 
 

Workshop:  Comparative Approaches to the Study of Immigration, Ethnicity, and Religion

 
On May 9, 2014 and May 10, 2014, The Europe Center will host the Fourth Annual Workshop on Comparative Approaches to the Study of Immigration, Ethnicity, and Religion.
 
Speakers draw from a range of national and international universities and include Jens Hainmueller, Dominik Hangartner, Efrén Pérez, Lauren Prather, Jorge Bravo,  Giovanni Facchini, Cecilia Testa, Harris Mylonas, Rahsaan Maxwell, Ali Valenzuela, Mark Helbling, Rob Ford, Matthew Wright, Karen Jusko, Maggie Peters, Justin Gest, Rafaela M. Dancygier, and Yotam Margalit.
 
The all-day workshop will begin at 8:30 am on Friday and at 9:15 am on Saturday, and will be held in the CISAC Conference Room in Encina Hall. Visitors are cordially invited to attend. 
 
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details about this event.
 
 

Spring 2014 Graduate Student Grant Competition Winners Announced

 
Please join us in congratulating the winners of The Europe Center Spring 2014 Graduate Student Grant Competition:
 
Lisa Barge, German Studies, “Beyond Objectivity: Questioning Shifting Scientific Paradigms in Erwin Schrödinger's Thought”
 
Michela Giorcelli, Economics, “Transfer of Production and Management Model Across National Borders:  Evidence from the Technical Assistance and Productivity Program”
 
Benjamin Hein, Modern European History, “Capitalism Dispersed: Frankfurt and the European Stock Exchanges, 1880-1960”
 
Michelle Kahn, Modern European History, “Everyday Integration: Turks, Germans, and the Boundaries of Europe”
 
Friederike Knüpling, German Studies, “Kleist vom Ende lesen”
 
Orysia Kulick, History, “Politics, Power, and Informal Networks in Soviet Ukraine”
 
Claire Rydell, U.S. History, “Inventing an American Liberal Tradition: How England's John Locke Became ‘America's Philosopher’, 1700-2000”
 
Lena Tahmassian, Iberian and Latin American Cultures, “Post-Utopian Visions: Modes of Countercultural Discourse of the Spanish Transition to Democracy”
 
Donni Wang, Classics, “Illich Seminar”
 
Lori Weekes, Anthropology & Law, “Nation Building in the Post-Soviet Baltics as a Legal, Institutional, and Ethno-Cultural Project”
 
The Spring Grant Competition winners will join 16 graduate students who were awarded competitive research grants by the Center in Fall 2013. The Center regularly supports 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 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. 
 
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details about this event.
 
 

Meet our Visiting Scholars:  Vibeke Kieding Banik

 
In each newsletter, The Europe Center would like to introduce you to a visiting scholar or collaborator at the Center. We welcome you to visit the Center and get to know our guests.
 
Image of Vibeke Banik, Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, Stanford UniversityVibeke Kieding Banik is currently affiliated as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, at the University of Oslo. Her main focus of research is on the history of minorities in Scandinavia, particularly Jews, with an emphasis on migration and integration. Her research interests also include gender history, and her current project investigates whether there was a gendered integration strategy among Scandinavian Jews in the period 1900-1940. Dr. Banik has authored several articles on Jewish life in Norway, Jewish historiography, and on the Norwegian women’s suffragette movement. She has taught extensively on Jewish history and is currently writing a book on the history of the Norwegian Jews, scheduled to be published in 2015.
 
 
 

Workshop Schedules  

 
The Europe Center invites you to attend the talks of speakers in the following workshop series: 
 

Europe and the Global Economy

 
May 15, 2014
Christina Davis, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
“Membership Conditionality and Institutional Reform: The Case of the OECD”  
RSVP by May 12, 2014
 

European Governance

 
May 22, 2014
Wolfgang Ischinger, Former German Ambassador to the U.S.; Chairman, Munich Security Conference
“The Future of European Security & Defence” 
RSVP by May 19, 2014
 
May 29, 2014
Simon Hug, Professor of Political Science, University of Geneva
“The European Parliament after Lisbon (and before)” 
RSVP by May 26, 2014
 
 

The Europe Center Sponsored Events

 
We invite you to attend the following events sponsored or co-sponsored by The Europe Center:
 
May 16 and May 17, 2014
“Let There Be Enlightenment: The Religious and Mystical Sources of Rationality”
A Stanford University Conference
Margaret Jacks Hall: Terrace Room
 
May 29, 2014
Josef Joffe, FSI Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution Research Fellow, and Publisher/Editor of Die Zeit
“The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies”
Oksenberg Conference Room
 
Jun 3, 2014
Tommaso Piffer, Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University and University of Cambridge
“The Allies, the European Resistance and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe”
History Corner, Room 307
 
 

Other Events

 
The Europe Center also invites you to attend the following event of interest:
 
May 12, 2014
Latvian Cultural Evening: Sustaining a Memory of the Future
Cubberley Auditorium
 

We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.

All News button
1

CISAC Honors Students Prize-Winning Thesis Presentations: Elle Stuart and James Honsa

-

CISAC Conference Room

Coit D. Blacker

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street, C137
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-5368 (650) 723-3435
0
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences
coit_blacker_2022.jpg
PhD

Coit Blacker is a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. He served as director of FSI from 2003 to 2012. From 2005 to 2011, he was co-chair of the International Initiative of the Stanford Challenge, and from 2004 to 2007, served as a member of the Development Committee of the university's Board of Trustees.

During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he oversaw the implementation of U.S. policy toward Russia and the New Independent States, while also serving as principal staff assistant to the president and the National Security Advisor on matters relating to the former Soviet Union.

Following his government service, Blacker returned to Stanford to resume his research and teaching. From 1998 to 2003, he also co-directed the Aspen Institute's U.S.-Russia Dialogue, which brought together prominent U.S. and Russian specialists on foreign and defense policy for discussion and review of critical issues in the bilateral relationship. He was a study group member of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission) throughout the commission's tenure.

In 2001, Blacker was the recipient of the Laurence and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford.

Blacker holds an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies for his work on U.S.-Russian relations. He is a graduate of Occidental College (A.B., Political Science) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A., M.A.L.D., and Ph.D).

Blacker's association with Stanford began in 1977, when he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Arms Control and Disarmament Program, the precursor to the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Coit D. Blacker Senior Fellow; Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies, School of Humanities and Sciences; CISAC and CDDRL Faculty Member Moderator
Martha Crenshaw Senior Fellow at FSI; Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) Moderator
Seminars
Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)

The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The Europe Center recently initiated a distinguished annual lectureship named, The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World.  The lectures are intended to promote awareness of Europe's lessons and experiences with a goal of enhancing our collective knowledge of both contemporary global affairs and Europe itself.  Each year, faculty affiliates at the Center select a renowned intellectual to deliver the lectureship on a topic of significant scholarly interest.  The Europe Center invites you to the inaugural annual lectures of this series by Adam Tooze, Barton M. Briggs Professor of History, Yale University.

 

“Making Peace in Europe 1917-1919: Brest-Litovsk and Versailles”

Date: Wednesday, Apr 30, 2014

Time: 4:00 - 5:30 pm

Location: Koret Taube Room, Gunn-SIEPR

 

“Hegemony: Europe, America and the Problem of Financial Reconstruction, 1916-1933”

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2014

Time: 4:00 - 5:30 pm

Location: Koret Taube Room, Gunn-SIEPR

 

“Unsettled Lands: The Interwar Crisis of Agrarian Europe”

Date: May 2, 2014

Time: 4:00 - 5:30 pm

Location: Bechtel Conference Center

Reception: 5:30 - 6:15 pm

 

RSVP by Apr 23, 2014

 

On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Adam Tooze will deliver three lectures about the history of the transformation of the global power structure that followed from Imperial Germany’s decision to provoke America’s declaration of war in 1917.  Tooze advances a powerful explanation of why the First World War rearranged political and economic structures across Eurasia and the British Empire, sowed the seeds of revolution in Russia and China, and laid the foundations of a new global order that began to revolve around the United States and the Pacific.  These lectures will present an argument for why the fate of effectively the whole of civilization changed in 1917, and why the First World War’s legacy continues to shape our world today.

Tooze is the author of The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2006) and Statistics and the German State 1900-1945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001), among numerous other scholarly articles on modern European history.

Hero Image
All News button
1

2014 TEC Lectureship on Europe and the World with Adam Tooze, Yale University

The Europe Center invites you to the inaugural annual lectures of this series by Adam Tooze, Barton M. Briggs Professor of History, Yale University. On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Adam Tooze will deliver three lectures about the history of the transformation of the global power structure that followed from Imperial Germany’s decision to provoke America’s declaration of war in 1917.  Tooze advances a powerful explanation of why the First World War rearranged political and economic structures across Eurasia and the British Empire, sowed the seeds of revolution in Russia and China, and laid the foundations of a new global order that began to revolve around the United States and the Pacific. These lectures will present an argument for why the fate of effectively the whole of civilization changed in 1917, and why the First World War’s legacy continues to shape our world today.

Titles and venues are listed below.


Wednesday, Apr 30, 2014, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Koret Taube Room, Gunn-SIEPR
“Making Peace in Europe 1917-1919: Brest-Litovsk and Versailles”
Recent events in Ukraine pose the question, is a comprehensive peace for Europe, both East and West, possible? This lecture will address the first moment in which that question was posed, during and after World War I. In light of current events the lecture will focus on the influence of Russian power and powerlessness in shaping both the abortive effort to make peace in the East between Imperial Germany and Soviet Russia at Brest Litovsk - the first treaty to recognize the existence of an independent Ukraine - and the efforts to make peace in the West at Versailles and after. Returning to the period 1917-1923 suggests sobering conclusions about the stability of the order that we have taken for granted since 1991.

 

Thursday, May 1, 2014, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Koret Taube Room, Gunn-SIEPR
“Hegemony: Europe, America and the Problem of Financial Reconstruction, 1916-1933”
Having established itself in the 19th century as the financial center of the world, Europe's sudden impoverishment by World War I came as a dramatic shock. The ensuing trans-Atlantic crises of the 1920s and early 1930s were not only the most severe but the most consequential in the history of Europe and the wider world. But, to this day there is substantial disagreement amongst both social scientists and historians as to the causes of the disaster. Was it American leadership or a failure of cooperation that was to blame? This lecture will argue the case for a revised and historicized version of the hegemonic failure thesis. The absence presence of American influence was crucial in determining Europe's fate.

 

Friday, May 2, 2014, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Bechtel Conference Center
Followed by a reeception, 5:30 pm - 6:15 pm
“Unsettled Lands: The Interwar Crisis of Agrarian Europe”
Until the middle of the twentieth century Europe, like the rest of the world, was majority agrarian. And yet the most influential accounts of the interwar crisis, framed as they were by the industrial and urban world of the later twentieth-century Europe, tended to ignore this evident fact, focusing instead on workers and business-men, politicians and soldiers. This lecture will illustrate how brining the peasantry back in has the potential not only to throw new light on Europe's great epoch of crisis, but to open that history, beyond the Bloodlands to the wider world.

    

Tooze is the author of The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2006) and Statistics and the German State 1900-1945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001), among numerous other scholarly articles on modern European history.

 

April 30th and May 1st: Koret-Taube Conference Center in the Gunn–SIEPR Building (366 Galvez Street).

May 2nd: Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall (616 Serra Street).

Adam Tooze Barton M. Briggs Professor of History Speaker Yale University
Lectures
The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World
Subscribe to Borders