Stanford University

Odd one out? The UK government’s voting behaviour in the EU Council

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EU legislative politics have changed dramatically during the past decade, and the British government has been a vocal and influential voice in shaping EU policies and processes. Based on an original dataset covering all legislative decisions by the EU governments since the enlargement to Central- and Eastern Europe in 2004, this paper provides detailed analysis to explain and elaborate on the British votes in the EU Council. It shows that the UK has opposed legislation more than other countries, and that this opposition has increased in recent years. However, advanced text analysis of formal policy statements from the Council records shows that the UK government should not be considered a policy outlier: a group of small- and medium-sized countries frequently side with the UK position in the Council records. They will likely miss the British position and outspoken voice as the EU embarks on a new phase in European integration. The results extend our existing knowledge about negotiation dynamics and voting behaviour in the Council, and are relevant to studies of other intergovernmental negotiation forums too.

Sara Hagemann


Sara Hagemann is Associate Professor in European Politics at London School of Economics and Political Science, which she joined in September 2009. In her work, Sara draws on a mix of academic and policy experience as she has held research and policy positions in Brussels, Copenhagen and London. Sara has published extensively on European affairs, in particular on transparency and accountability in political systems, EU policy-making processes, EU treaty matters, the role of national parliaments, and the consequences of EU enlargements.

Before joining LSE, Sara worked as a Policy Analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC), where she was responsible for its Political Europe programme. She has also held posts at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), and in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is the Co-Founder and General Editor of the LSE’s popular European Politics blog EUROPP, and Co-Founder and former Managing Director of VoteWatch.eu (www.votewatch.eu), an online initiative that monitors EU decision-makers’ voting records.

Sara has been awarded an ESRC Impact Accelerator Grant (from September 2016- April 2018) through the LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs. She was also an ESRC Senior Fellow as part of the UK in a Changing Europe programme in 2016, where she worked as an independent expert advisor to the UK government, parliament and public in the run-up to and aftermath of the UK’s referendum on EU membership.

 

William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra St, Stanford, CA 94305

Sara Hagemann Associate Professor in European Politics Speaker London School of Economics and Political Science
Lectures
European Governance Seminar Series
European Governance

The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past

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This event is now full, and we are no longer able to accept reservations.
Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

 

Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.

The book explores why Russia, unlike Germany, has failed to come to terms with the darkest pages of its past: Stalin's purges, the Gulag, and the war deportations. The narrative roams from the corridors of the Kremlin to the wilds of the Gulags and the trenches of East Ukraine. It puts the annexation of Crimea and the newly assertive Russia in the context of the delayed fallout of the Soviet collapse.
 
The Long Hangover is a book about a lost generation: the millions of Russians who lost their country and the subsequent attempts to restore to them a sense of purpose. Packed with analysis but told mainly through vibrant reportage, it is a thoughtful exploration of the legacy of the Soviet collapse and how it has affected life in Russia and Putin's policies.
 

Shaun Walker

Shaun Walker is Moscow Correspondent for The Guardian and has reported from Russia for more than a decade. He studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University, and has worked as a journalist in Moscow for more than a decade.

 
Copies of this book will be on sale at the event.
Shaun Walker Speaker
Lectures

Neuronal Intrinsic Signaling for Neuroprotection and Axon Regeneration

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Summary

 

Axonopathy is a typical early characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases in central nervous system (CNS), which leads to axon degeneration and retrograde neuronal cell death. It is critical to decipher the upstream signals that trigger the neurodegeneration cascade to minimize the severe consequences of progressive CNS dysfunction. It is also upmost interest to promote CNS axon regeneration for neural repair. Optic neuropathies are a group of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) diseases with features of axonopathy: they are initiated by optic nerve (ON) injury and that produces secondary RGC death. Prof. Hu’s study of three in vivo mouse models of optic neuropathies (traumatic optic nerve injury, glaucoma and EAE/optic neuritis) revealed that both acute traumatic injury and chronic insult of ON induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and activate the unfolded protein response (UPR) signal transduction pathways in RGCs. Modulation of two key downstream pathways of ER stress synergistically promote survival of both RGC somata and axons in all three optic neuropathy models, suggest that neuronal ER stress is a general upstream mechanism for both events in CNS axonopathies, and that axon injury-induced ER stress is the link between the sequential events of axon injury and neuronal soma death. Using the same model, we also revealed a complex neuron-intrinsic balancing mechanism involving AKT as the nodal point of PI3K, mTORC1/2 and GSK3β that coordinates both positive and negative cues to regulate adult CNS axon regeneration.

Speaker - Professor Hu Yang

 

Prof. Hu, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Stanford

University School of Medicine, is also member of Bio-X

and of Stanford Neurosciences Institute. He received the

Doughlas Johnson Award for Glaucoma Research (2013)

and the Knight Templar Eye Foundation Travel Fellowship

Award (2016). Prof. Hu received his Ph.D in Neuroscience

at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and MD from

Beijing Medical University.

 

 

 

Registration

 

Lunch box option provided

 

 

Coming to SCPKU

 

The nearest Peking University entrance to the Center is

the Northeast Gate on Zhongguancun Beidajie. Please

make sure to bring your ID or passport for registration at

the gate. We will send you a reminder and map of the

Center once you have successfully registered. For

inquiries, please call (86) 10 62744170.

Download pdf

Stanford Center at Peking University
Langrun Yuan, Peking University

Lectures

Eastern European Security with Bronislaw Komorowski, former president of Poland

Bronisław Komorowski, a former anti-communist opposition activist, member of Parliament, Minister of National Defence, and Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, was President of Poland from 2010-2015.

During the '60s and '70s, Komorowski was deeply involved in opposition activities. Komorowski worked as a printer, journalist, distributor and publisher of the underground press. In the years of opposition activities, he was frequently arrested and victimized. During martial law, he was interned.
 
He defended his MA thesis at the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw. In 1977 he worked in Zespół Prasy Pax, and in 1980- 1981 at the Social Research Centre NSZZ Solidarność (Independent and Self-governing Trade Union Solidarność) of the Mazovian Region. From September 1982 he worked as an editor of the independent, underground magazine “ABC” (Adriatic – Baltic – Black Sea).
 
From 1991 to 2010 he was Member of Parliament for consecutive terms in the Sejm. He worked in the Commission for Poles Overseas and in the Commission for National Defense, and then in the Commission for Foreign Affairs. From 1997 to 2000 he presided over the Sejm Commission for National Defense. From 2001 he was deputy chairman of the Sejm commission for National Defense and a member for the Sejm Commission for Foreign Affairs.

As a result of the tragic death of President Lech Kaczyński in the Smoleńsk catastrophe on April 10th, 2010, Komorowski became Acting President of the Republic of Poland under the regulations of the Constitution. He later won the presidential election on July 4, 2010, and took office on August 6, 2010.
 
 

Koret-Taube Conference Center

Gunn-SIEPR Building

366 Galvez Street

Bronisław Komorowski former president of Poland former president of Poland
Lectures
European Security Initiative

Reform Contradictions Facing China's New Leadership

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Drawing on his latest book, Cracking the China Conundrum: Why Conventional Economic Wisdom is Wrong (Oxford University Press, 2017), Yukon Huang will highlight the reform challenges that China's leadership, recently anointed at the 19th Party Congress, will face. These include dealing with negative global opinions of the country, surging debt levels, a prolonged growth slowdown, entrenched corruption, trade and investment tensions and pressures for political liberalization. Dr. Huang argues that many of the mainstream assumptions for addressing these issues are misguided and that the related policy prescriptions are, therefore, flawed.

 

A book signing will follow. Copies of Dr. Huang's book will be available for purchase

[[{"fid":"228512","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"5":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"style":"margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 0px; float: left; height: 262px; width: 200px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"5"}}]]Yukon Huang is currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Asia Program. He was formerly the World Bank’s Country Director for China. His research focuses on China’s economy and its regional and global impact. He is a featured commentator for the Financial Times on China, and his articles are seen frequently in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Foreign Affairs, National Interest and Caixin. He has authored or co-authored East Asian Visions: Perspectives on Economic Development (2006); Reshaping Economic Geography in East Asia (2009); and International Migration and Development in East Asia and the Pacific (2014). His latest book is Cracking the China Conundrum: Why Conventional Economic Wisdom is Wrong (2017). He has a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a B.A. from Yale University.

Philipppines Conference Room
 Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
 616 Serra Street
 Stanford, CA 94305

Yukon Huang <i>Senior Fellow</i>, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Asia Program
Lectures

Populism as a Problem of Social Integration

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We contend that contemporary support for populist parties stems from a set of economic and cultural developments that have severed the connections that usually bind people to their society. Building on an important ethnographic literature, we assess whether populism can be seen as a problem of social integration through an examination of political attitudes and electoral behavior in 26 developed democracies. Using subjective social status as an indicator for the social integration of individuals, we find that people who feel more marginal to society, because they lack social engagement or a sense of social respect, are more likely to be alienated from mainstream politics and to not vote or vote for parties of the populist right or left. The implication is that support for parties of the populist right and left has both economic and cultural roots and should be addressed, not only as an issue of economic deprivation requiring redistribution, but also as an issue of social integration requiring efforts to expand social recognition.
 
Noam Gidron image
Noam Gidron is fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton. Noam received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in May 2016. His research focuses on political sociology and electoral politics in advanced democracies. It draws on multiple methods, including survey analysis, experiments, text analysis, and elite interviews. Geographically, Noam’s work covers member states of the European Union, the United States and Israel. Next year, Noam will join the faculty of the political science department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

Co-sponsored by the Global Populisms Project

Noam Gidron Princeton University
Lectures

Cross-Strait Relations after the 19th Party Congress

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Abstract

Speculation about the course of cross-Strait relations after the upcoming 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress ranges from greater PRC flexibility to substantially increased pressure on Taiwan. The Mainland’s persistent suspicion about President Tsai Ing-wen’s motives has only deepened with her appointment of avowed independence supporter Lai Ching-te as premier, especially because of the prospect that Lai could eventually become president. As a result, once the internal tugging and hauling leading up to the Party Congress has been settled, some people predict that Beijing will resort to military intimidation or even actual use of force to bring Tsai to heel. What are the PRC’s goals? What are Taipei’s? What role can and should the United States play in seeking not only to avoid conflict but to reestablish a reliable level of stability in cross-Strait relations and to prevent Taiwan from once more becoming a highly divisive issue in U.S.-PRC relations? Alan Romberg will address these issues in his talk on October 30th.

 

Bio

Alan Romberg

Alan Romberg is a Distinguished Fellow and the Director of the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues including 27 years in the State Department, with over 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Romberg was the Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Deputy Spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia, including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Additionally, Romberg spent almost 10 years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the secretary of the navy.

Romberg holds an M.A. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), both part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Alan Romberg Distinguished Fellow Stimson Center
Lectures

U.S.-China Rivalry and the Origins of Taiwan's Developmental State

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Abstract 

Scholars have credited a model of state-led capitalism called the developmental state with producing the first wave of the East Asian economic miracle. Using historical evidence based on original archival research, this talk offers a geopolitical explanation for the origins of the developmental state. In contrast to previous studies that have emphasized colonial legacies or domestic political factors, I argue that the developmental state was the legacy of the rivalry between the United States and Communist China during the Cold War. Responding to the acute tensions in Northeast Asia in the early postwar years, the United States supported emergency economic controls in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to enforce political stability. In response to the belief that the Communist threat would persist over the long term, the U.S. strengthened its clients by laying the foundations of a capitalist, export-oriented economy under bureaucratic guidance. The result of these interventions was a distinctive model of state-directed capitalism that scholars would later characterize as a developmental state.

I verify this claim by examining the rivalry between the United States and the Chinese Communists and demonstrating that American threat perceptions caused the U.S. to promote unorthodox economic policies among its clients in Northeast Asia. In particular, I examine U.S. relations with the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan, where American efforts to create a bulwark against Communism led to the creation of an elite economic bureaucracy for administering U.S. economic aid. In contrast, the United States decided not to create a developmental state in the Philippines because the Philippine state was not threatened by the Chinese Communists. Instead, the Philippines faced a domestic insurgency that was weaker and comparatively short-lived. As a result, the U.S. pursued a limited goal of maintaining economic stability instead of promoting rapid industrialization. These findings shed new light on the legacy of statism in American foreign economic policy and highlight the importance of geopolitics in international development.

 

Bio

James Lee

James Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He specializes in International Relations with a focus on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and relations across the Taiwan Strait. James also serves as the Senior Editor for Taiwan Security Research, an academic website that aggregates news and commentary on the economic and political dimensions of Taiwan's security.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), both part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

James Lee Ph.D. Candidate Princeton University
Lectures

100 Shades of Red

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This event has reached full capacity, please email Shannon at sj1874@stanford.edu to get on the waitlist.

 

Mikhail Zygar will talk about the perception of the Russian revolution of 1917 a hundred years later. He will explore how the centenary of the revolution is ignored by the Russian government and about the evolution of the attitude of the Russian society towards the revolution.

 

Mikhail Zygar is a Russian journalist, writer and filmmaker, and the founding editor-in-chief of the Russian independent news TV-channel, Dozhd (2010 - 2015). Prior to Dozhd, Zygar worked for Newsweek Russia and the business daily Kommersant, where he covered the conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, and Kosovo. His recent book All the Kremlin’s Men is based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, presenting a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. Zygar is the founder of Project1917. Free History, an online project that enables participants to learn about the events of 1917 from those who lived during this defining moment of history. He is also the founder of Future History Lab - the team behind Project1917. His new book, The Empire Must Die, will be released in the US on November, 7th. It portrays the years leading up to the Russian revolution and the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the Communist Revolution.

 

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

 

 

Mikhail Zygar journalist
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

Bargaining Success in the Reform of the Eurozone

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Between 2010 and 2015, EU governments negotiated consecutive reforms to the governance of the eurozone which, taken together, represent perhaps the most significant deepening of European integration in modern times. What factors determined the outcome of these negotiations? Did some countries exert greater influence than others? This paper offers the first systematic assessment of bargaining success in the reform of the eurozone. It evaluates the explanatory power of three potential sources of bargaining success – power, preferences, and coalitions – based on an analysis of new and unique data on the positions of all EU member states on all key reform proposals. Its conclusions carry general importance for our understanding of power and negotiation in Europe.

 

Jonas Tallberg image

 

Jonas Tallberg is Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, where he directs the research group on global and regional governance, selected as a leading area of research at Stockholm University. His primary research interests are global governance and European Union politics. His most recent book is the The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2013), co-authored with Thomas Sommerer, Theresa Squatrito and Christer Jönsson. Earlier books include Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Tallberg has won numerous awards for his research, including the Forskraft Award for the best Swedish dissertation on international relations, the JCMS Prize for the best article in Journal of Common Market Studies, and the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the German Humboldt Foundation. He has been awarded research grants from, among others, the European Research Council, Fulbright Commission, Swedish Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and Nordic Research Academy.

Jonas Tallberg Stockholm University
Lectures
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