Conferences

Conferences

2017/18

“The Internationalization of Canadian Higher Education: which direction are we heading?”

This roundtable will address the internationalization strategies of universities in Canada (and B.C. more specifically) by looking at three dimensions or debates in higher education internationalization: What does internationalization mean? Who does internationalization affect? How does internationalization vary across degree-level? These issues will also be discussed in the context of the Bologna Resource Centre’s mandate of assessing the impacts of Europeanization on higher education on Canada. The discussants will reflect on the ‘direction’ of higher education internationalization in a more geographical sense – is Canada and B.C. increasingly ‘east’ or ‘west’ facing?

Panelists:

Cheryl Dumaresq, Managing Director, Office of the Vice-Provost International (UBC)
Kumari Beck, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education (SFU); Co-Director for the Centre for Research on International Education (CRIE)
André Elias Mazawi, Professor of Educational Studies (UBC); Lead Researcher in the project “Higher education and constructions of the ‘knowledge society’”

Talks

2020/21

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Riikkamari Muhonen, PhD Candidate of Comparative History, Central European University

Abstract – Officially racism did not exist in the Soviet Union, a society that stated it was based on the principle of friendship between peoples and had welcomed groups of black people seeking refuge from racism in Western societies already in the 1920s. After the death of Stalin this type of friendship became also a central part of Soviet foreign policy, as internationalism was re-introduced to Soviet political agenda as part of the Thaw atmosphere. In the field of higher education this meant opening the doors of Soviet universities to students from the newly independent states of the Third World. During the 1960s there were altogether thousands of foreign students from all over the world studying in Moscow, which created a new, more multicultural atmosphere to the Soviet capital. Despite the official statements of the nonracist nature of the Soviet society, the experiences of students concerning Soviet attitudes towards people from different ethnic backgrounds varied.

Drawing from a wide range of sources, including interviews with alumni of Soviet universities, published memoirs, and Russian archival sources, Ms. Muhonen aims to present some of the different realities people of color experienced during their stay in Moscow. While especially during holiday seasons there were several racist attacks per week in different areas of Moscow city and the situation was eminently different in comparison to the experiences of black people in the 1920s, many students also experienced that their “exotic” looks made them interesting to the local population and that it was easy for them to find Soviet friends.

At the same time, orientalist perspectives that tended to highlight the underdevelopment reigning in the Global South due to colonialism were constantly present in the Soviet public sphere, portraying the Soviet Union as a developed and technically advanced supporter of these regions and their peoples, including foreign students. Promotion of internationalism as portrayed through the students was an important part of the Soviet public sphere and the students gained wide presence in Soviet media. In part, these efforts were also aimed to promote a positive image of the foreign students, as Soviet aid to foreign countries and reception of students also gained criticism among the general population.

Ms. Muhonen’s presentation aims to discuss the concept of race and racism in the Soviet context, as for instance it was not only the African students that were considered black in the Soviet Union, but, as one of her informants stated, “blackness” was a concept that was often applied to any people of non-European appearance. Ms. Muhonen will look at the explanations and reactions to different forms of “curiosity” and racism in the 1960s Soviet society as well as the change in attitudes that had taken place between the 1920s and 1960s.

Bio – Riikkamari Muhonen is a PhD candidate at the History Department of Central European University (Hungary/Austria). Her dissertation analyzes Moscow-based Peoples’ Friendship University as a case of Soviet cooperation with the developing world in the 1960s and 1970s, a topic she has also researched as a Fulbright visiting student researcher at University of California, Berkeley.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Eurasia Research Cluster.

Dr. Regina Römhild, Professor, Institute for European Ethnography, Humboldt University of Berlin

Abstract – The making of Europe can be studied through the lens of complex processes of “Othering”, i.e. processes of world-making through borders and boundaries defining a hegemonic “Europeanness” against subaltern formations of “Otherness”. However, these borders and boundaries are constantly contested and undercut in practices of (post)migrant mobilities and mobilizations. Hence, the un- and re-making of Europe can also be studied by looking at these destabilizing movements and their worlding projects. Seen through that lens, Other Europes are constantly in the making as well, if only in certain moments of unforeseen resistance, allience and conviviality. The talk will explore such moments along three ethnographic vignettes in which an improvised social imagination of “Post-Otherness” can be shown to be at work pointing to the presence of unknown futures beyond borderland Europe. It will be argued towards a radicalized perspective that focuses strongly on such subversive, convivial moments rather than merely on the making of borders and differences that especially critical research is predominantly concerned with.

Co-sponsored by the UBC Centre for Migration Studies, UBC Institute for European Studies and UBC Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES)

Dr. Amila Buturovic, Professor, Department of Humanities, University of York

Abstract – This study focuses on medical pluralism in Ottoman Bosnia through its confessional differences, medical theories, and curative practices. Given that medical knowledge circulated inter-regionally, between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, as well as intra-regionally, among Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews, the study sheds light on how premodern Bosnians negotiated their lives between local and trans-local values and systems of knowledge. A broader aim is to recalibrate the understanding of this historical period by focusing on the examples of cultural intimacy and cross-confessional dynamics drawn along the ideas and practices of healing. Primary sources include material and non-material culture, written multi-lingual sources that include treatises on medicine and religious healing; talismanic texts and amulets; herbalist and pharmaceutical manuals; and archival records that reflect the interactive and cross-confessional spirit of healing in Ottoman Bosnia. Steeped in the region’s cultural history, the study also seeks to counteract the current political climate that systematically endangers cultural intimacy through ethnic divisions, exclusivist discourse, and the legacy of the 1992-1995 genocide. Turning to a premodern past is not only a process of writing history but an act of rewriting the past and the recovery of memory which the present has targeted for destruction.

Bio – Amila Buturovic is a Professor at the Department of Humanities at the University of York. Her research interests span the intersections of religion and culture, primarily in the context of Islamic societies. Her latest book concerned the spaces and culture of death in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on the questions of continuity and discontinuity in eschatological sensibilities, epigraphic texts, and commemorative practices in Bosnian cultural history. Currently, she is doing research on the culture of health in Ottoman Bosnia, investigating mainstream and alternative healers and healing practices and focusing on the interconfessional transmission of medical theories and manuals, amulets and talismanic practices, and herbalism.

This event is hosted by the UBC Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster and co-sponsored by the CENES Department, the UBC Institute for European Studies, and the UBC Centre for Migration Studies.

Jelena Todorovic, Ph.D. Candidate in Classics, Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies

Abstract – The place that the Greek heritage has had in the Serbian culture is somewhat different than the one we come across in the Western European traditions. From the first Serbian states in the early 9th century and the Medieval Serbian monarchies to the national awakening in the 18th century, and all the way to the modern days, the cultural dominance of the Orthodox Byzantium, and Hellenic heritage with it, has been determining in the shaping of Serbian identity. Hellenic and Byzantine Mediterranean has always been a preferred destination of Serbian authors, a place they approached with a pronounced sense of kinship, with a desire to discover their own spiritual continuities, and their own position in the world. What role did this patrimony that had helped define the Serbian identity have in Communist-ruled Serbia, in the times when all the national attributes were stigmatized and violently erased? This presentation discusses how the reception of Greek mythological tragedy in the postwar Serbian literature both mapped onto the unique sentiment that the Serbian authors had for Greek antiquity and provided a safe place for social and political criticism inside the communist apparatus.

Jelena Todorovic is a Ph.D. Candidate in Classics in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies, UBC Public Scholar, and Graduate Student Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Histories Research Excellence Cluster. Her research interests are in ancient Greek and Roman drama and performance, reception studies, and disability theatre studies. Her doctoral research is focused on the interpretation and study of the representation of disability on the ancient Roman comic stage. Jelena’s current research projects include the project on the reception of classical poetry and performance in Modern Serbia.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for European Studies, the Centre for Migration Studies, and the  Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster.

2019/20

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Visiting scholar Maria Rosaria Di Nucci from the Environmental Policy Research Centre, Freie Universitat, Berlin.

Dr. De Nucci is principal investigator “WinWind” funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program.

Dr. Di Nucci will share her research findings on factors for and against a community’s acceptance of wind energy. Her research work engages multi-stakeholders and extends through Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain. Her talk is hosted by the Institute for European Studies, UBC in partnership with Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) at UBC.

Presented by the Institute of European Studies in partnership with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On November 9, 1989, the border dividing Berlin and Germany was opened. Yet, despite having been physically dismantled, the Berlin Wall lives on in the thinking of many Germans. 30 years later it is time to take stock of the legacies of unification for Germany and, more broadly, Europe. This discussion with scholars of Europe and contemporary witnesses will take us back to what happened in the fall of 1989 and examine the social, cultural, and economic effects of unification.

The roundtable, moderated by Dr. Sima Godfrey (Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies), will feature speakers including:

  • Dr. Antje Ellermann, Director of the Institute for European Studies
  • Prof. Kurt Huebner, Jean Monnet Chair for European Integration and Global Political Economy, Professor of Political Science
  • Dr. Kyle Frackman, Associate Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies
  • Prof. Lutz Lampe, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Pastor Hardo Ermisch, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • Prof. Chris Friedrichs, Professor Emeritus of History

Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies, and the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.

Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Professor Emeritus Ulrich Reimkasten (Halle, Germany) in conversation with Dr. T’ai Smith (UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory)

Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies, and the Department of Central, Northern and Eastern European Studies.

Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Film screening of Andreas Dresen’s film Gundermann (2018), winner of the 2019 German Film Award for Best Feature Film. The renowned German filmmaker Andreas Dresen transformed the biography of real-life figure Gerhard Gundermann into an intense cinematic reflection about life during the time of the German Democratic Republic. The film considers, among other things, Gundermann’s life as a coal miner, singer, and his complex and contested relationship with the East German secret police.

Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies and the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.

Connor Doak, University of Bristol
“The Poetics of Masculinity: Rereading Vladimir Mayakovsky”

Abstract – How might masculinity be performed in verse? What is the relationship between class;masculinity and modernist poetic experimentation? Is there a poetics of masculinity? This talk explores these questions through the case study of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), who began his career as a Futurist provocateur in a yellow blouse, reinvented himself as the Soviet worker-poet par excellence in the 1920s, before becoming disillusioned and taking his own life in 1930. I argue that Mayakovsky used formal experimentation in his verse and drama to negotiate a position of gendered agency during a period of political and social transformation, as Russia experienced war, revolution, and the establishment of the world’s first socialist state.

Co-sponsored with the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.

Right-Wing Populism and Climate Change in Europe

In a current study by adelphi, Stella Schaller and Alexander Carius investigate how right-wing populist parties in Europe behave in the field of climate change. Alexander Carius will present some of this research, which examines the voices and the weight of right-wing populist parties in the formulation of European climate policy.

Right-wing populist parties are part of the governments of eight EU member states and are making up a quarter of MEPs after the European elections in May 2019. The dwindling trust of citizens in democratic institutions and in Europe, the re-sorting of party spectrums, the declining influence of traditional popular parties as well as the emergence of multi-party coalitions and minority governments will all make governance increasingly difficult. At the same time, we are experiencing a profound transformation of life, work and mobility: European societies are facing epochal changes through digitalisation, urbanisation and climate change.

Bio – Alexander Carius is founder and Managing Director of adelphi, the Berlin-based think tank. One of the leading consultants on environmental and development policy in Germany, he is in demand around the world as a speaker, facilitator, and advisor. He is a ground-breaking thinker, innovative designer, nimble strategist, and global influencer. He translates scientific insights into practical options for governments, non-governmental organizations, industry associations, and companies. He works with a diverse range of actors to develop, design, and implement international negotiations, agenda-setting processes, and consultations.

Presented by the Germany Embassy in Ottawa in partnership with the Institute for European Studies and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

2018/19

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Jo Labanyi, New York University

Abstract – The relatively new field of the history of the emotions has made us aware that feelings, and the way they are conceptualized, are culturally specific. But this is a layered history of overlaps between emotional regimes that belong to different time frames and of returns, in new contexts, to ways of thinking about feeling from the past. The talk will consider how the history of the emotions can help us appreciate the non-linearity of historical processes.

Bio – Dr. Jo Labanyi is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She is a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish literature, cinema and visual culture. She has also worked in gender studies, popular culture, and memory in relation with the Spanish Civil War. Notable among her many publications are Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice (Oxford University Press, 2002), Gender and Modernization in the Spanish Realist Novel (Oxford University Press, 2000 – published in Spanish as Género y modernización en la novela realista espanyola, Cátedra, 2011) and is joint author of Engaging the Emotions in Spanish Culture and History (Vanderbilt University Press, 2016).

Presented by the Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies, in partnership with the Peter Wall Institute and the Institute for European Studies.

Andreas Stuhlmann, University of Alberta

Abstract – The fiftieth anniversary of the events of 1968 and the fortieth anniversary of the crisis of the so-called ‘Deutsche Herbst’ (German Autumn) of 1977/78 have rekindled interest in the history of the TV drama Bambule (Riot). It is the story of rebellion in an institution for girls. It was a joint project of director Eberhard Itzenplitz and journalist Ulrike Meinhof, but it never aired until 1994. The talk will focus the work on a critical edition of Bambule, including the other adaptation of the script.

Bio – Dr. Andreas Stuhlmann joined the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta after teaching Modern German Literature and Media Culture at University College Cork in Ireland and the University of Hamburg. His research interests include critical theory, exile literature and migration, dispositive and genre, literary polemics, German-Jewish cultural history, among his latest publication are articles and book chapters on Jewish Avenger characters, Hannah Arendt, Bert Brecht, Douglas Sirk, and Egon Monk.

Presented by the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies in partnership with the Institute for European Studies.

Bruno Amable, Professor (Economics, University of Geneva)

Abstract – In the 2010s, France was in a situation of systemic crisis, namely, the impossibility for political leadership to find a strategy of institutional change, or more generally a model of capitalism, that could gather sufficient social and political support. Prof. Amable examines the various attempts at reforming the French model since the 1980s, when the left tried briefly to orient the French political economy in a social democratic/socialist direction before changing course and opting for a more
orthodox macroeconomic and structural policy direction.

Bio – Bruno Amable has been a professor at the University of Geneva since August 2016. He was previously professor of economics at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is a recognized specialist in the various forms of capitalism, institutions and their influence on innovation and industry. He has published numerous contributions on the interactions between globalization, industrial policy and technical progress. In recent years, Prof. Amable has been expanding his interests in labour markets, European structural reforms and employment policy.

This talk is co-sponsored by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, the IES, and the Consulate General of France in Vancouver.

Marc Helbling, University of Bamberg

Abstract – Over the last two decades in political science an increasing number of policy indices have been created to go beyond single case studies or the comparison of a small number of cases. The aim of this method session is to look at how regulations in a particular policy field can be quantified for large-N analyses, what the potential of such policy indices are and which limitations they face. Using the example of the recently built Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) database challenges regarding conceptualization, measurement and aggregration will be debated. After a short presentations students will get the opportunity to discuss questions regarding their own research or more general questions in the field of policy index building.

Bio – Marc Helbling is a Professor in political sociology at the Department of Political Science at the University of Bamberg and a Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center where he has previously been head of the Emmy-Noether research group ‘Immigration Policies in Comparison’ (IMPIC). He works on immigration and citizenship policies, nationalism, national identities, xenophobia/islamophobia, and right-wing populism. His research was awarded the Young Scholar Research Award from the Mayor of Berlin, the Best Article Award (Honorable Mention) by APSA’s Section on Migration and Citizenship and the Best Paper Award by the Immigration Research Network of the Council for European Studies. He has also received a Fernand Braudel Fellowship at EUI and an ARC Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at CUNY.

Presented by the Institute for European Studies in partnership with UBC Migration.

Join us for a conversation with Ciarán Cannon, Irish Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as he discusses Ireland, EU, and Canada after Brexit.

Bio – Ciarán Cannon is Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with special responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development. He is a TD representing Galway East. Ciaran is formerly the Minister of State for Training & Skills at the Department of Education & Skills. He was first elected to Dáil Eireann in February 2011. Ciaran was elected to Galway County Council in June 2004, to represent the Loughrea Electoral Area. Following the 2007 General Election An Taoiseach nominated him to Seanad Eireann. Ciaran is also a strong advocate of the use of technology in education and is the founder of Excited – The Digital Learning Movement. He has worked closely with teachers and industry leaders to make the case for the introduction of computer science as a subject in Irish schools. Ciaran was born in Kiltullagh, Athenry and he lives there with his wife Niamh and son Evan. He is an award winning musician and songwriter and some of his work has been performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra. He is also an avid cyclist and regularly participates in a 900km fundraising cycle for the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, a national charity caring for children and young people with disabilities. Ciaran was chosen as one of Galway’s People of the Year in March 2002.

Galya Diment, University of Washington

Abstract – The talk will be based on the volume Diment is editing for Anthem Press, H.G. Wells and All Things Russian. One of the most fascinating aspects of Wells’s relationship with Russia is his rather outsized influence on Soviet science fiction. The talk will pay particular attention to the impact the English writer had on Alexander Belyaev, a pioneer of sci fi in the USSR, author of Professor Dowell’s Head (1925) and The Amphibian Man (1928). Wells and Belyaev met during Wells’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1934.

Bio – Dr. Galya Diment is a Professor in the Slavic Department, Thomas L. & Margo G. Wyckoff Endowed Faculty Fellow, and Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor in Western Civilization at the University of Washington. She is known for her work in Russian Jewish Studies and Anglo-Russian connections as well as her expertise on Nabokov and Goncharov. Her current project is a study of H.G. Wells and Russia.

Presented by the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies in partnership with the Institute for European Studies.

Mark Kayser, Hertie School of Governance

Abstract – Parties decide policy. Yet, cross-national research into the determinants of policy largely ignores the office- and policy-seeking incentives of parties. Because parties are strategic and forward-looking, they adopt policy positions to attract potential future coalition partners and increase their probability of remaining in or entering government. Building on a new measure that combines coalition formation models with polling data to estimate the expected coalition inclusion probabilities of nearly all parties in most developed parliamentary democracies at a monthly frequency, we estimate the effect of coalition prospects on environmental policy in nine parliamentary democracies. The coalition inclusion probability of green parties — regardless of whether they are in government — significantly predicts the environmental policy stringency of sitting governments. In contrast, political polling, which does not capture the strategic incentives of coalition formation, fails to predict environmental policy stringency.

Please join us for a round table with Roopa Desai Trilokekar (Assoc. Professor of Education, York University), Merli Tamtik (Asst.. Professor of Educational Administration, University of Manitoba) and Robert Harmsen (Profesor of Political Science, University of Luxemsbourg). This round table will evaluate the internationalization strategies of universities and governments in Europe and North America, with panelists discussing various aspects of change and resiliency in higher education. Are internationalization policies converging or diverging? Has internationalization become a primary end for universities, or just a means to achieve other objectives like access, equity or cost recovery?

2017/18

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With panelists:

Professor Antje Ellermann, Director of the Institute for European Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at UBC
Professor Kurt Hübner, Jean Monnet Chair for European Integration and Global Political Economy at UBC
Professor Richard Johnston, Canada Research Chair in Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation at UBC
Professor Steven Weldon, Director of the Centre for Public Opinion and Political Representation and Associate Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University
Chaired by Professor Rima Wilkes, Professor of Sociology at UBC

Francisco Colom
Spanish National Research Council in Madrid

Bahar Rumelili, Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair, Department of International Relations, Koc University

Abstract – The European Union is widely credited for consolidating a democratic ‘security community’ in Europe, and bringing about a definitive break with war-torn and authoritarian/totalitarian pasts in many European countries. Drawing on recent discussions in ontological security studies, this talk points out that these radical breaks may have come at the expense of ontological insecurity at the societal and individual levels in Europe. While conventional teleological narratives often treat reconciliation and breaking with the past as automatic by-products of European integration, ontological security theory calls for greater attention to the societal tensions and anxieties triggered by these transformations and how they are being managed –more or less successfully- through reconciliation dynamics and memory politics in different societal settings. The analysis draws comparative theoretical and empirical insights from case-specific literatures on reconciliation and memory politics in Europe to develop an ontological security perspective on European integration.

Please join us for a roundtable with the French Consul General, Philippe Sutter; British Consul General, Nicole Davison; and German Consul General Josef Beck, convened by Professor Kurt Huebner.

Sabine Sparwasser, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Canada

Presented by Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and co-sponsored by the Institute for European Studies.

Jürgen Salay, policy officer at the European Commission and 2017-2018 EU Fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Research Colloquium

2020/21

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Alex Rivard, PhD Candidate of Political Science, University of British Columbia

Abstract – This presentation is an early version of what will be two chapters of Alex Rivard’s dissertation. He is very much looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions! The quantitative study of secessionist parties has become increasingly popular in recent years (Massetti 2009; Massetti and Schakel 2015, 2016; Sorens 2005; to name but a few). These works range from the effects of the economy (Hierro and Queralt 2020; Massetti and Schakel 2015), political strategy via the study of party manifestos (Alonso et al. 2013; Basile 2015, 2016), and the interaction between established parties and ‘niche’ regional parties (Meguid 2008; Pogorelis et al. 2005; Zons 2015). While the extant work is illuminating, we still know relatively little about the structures of independence-seeking party success. In fact, most of the referenced literature provides very little in terms of descriptive statistics—statistics which demonstrate the increasing success of secessionist parties across Western Europe and North America. This work is an early look at the structures of secessionist success and employs a unique database which accounts for all regional and national elections in 29 regions across Western Europe and North America. It argues that secessionist parties have been increasingly successful well into the contemporary era, that they average roughly a quarter of the regional vote and do not demonstrate signs of slowing down. This paper also employs survival analysis via a Cox proportional hazards model to estimate the likelihood of secessionist party emergence in both subnational and national elections. It is, to our knowledge, the first such time an analysis like this has been conducted. Ultimately, this presentation argues that secessionist parties obviously vary in strength and support but viable secessionist parties ought to no longer be considered risible ‘niche parties’ with obscure policy demands. Instead, they can, and do, yield considerable regional power.

Kurt Huebner, University of British Columbia, Jean Monnet for European Integration and Global Political Economy

Henrik Jacobsen, University of British Columbia, PHD Student, Department of Political Science

The ‘Frugal Four’ and the Fiscal Policy Regime(s) of the EU during the corona-crisis: From austerity to mutual spending? Abstract: Covid-19 has triggered levels of fiscal activity in Europe not seen anymore since World War II and has reinforced the question of financial solidarity inside the EU, first thrown into sharp relief during the Euro-crisis (2009-2014). However, there are significant differences between EU-members in terms of their national preferences for the extent of financial solidarity and the conditions attached to it. In this paper, we explore the reasons for the formation of these ‘fiscal policy camps’. We find that traditional approaches based on political partisanship or geographical distributions (e.g. a frugal North vs a spending-spree South) offer little insight for explaining the positions of national governments on fiscal policy preferences. Instead we suggest that domestic political pressures – more precisely the extent to which incumbent governments are under pressure from Eurosceptic parties – is a central driver of a government’s preferences for fiscal policy in the EU. Finally, we reflect upon whether the coronacrisis may mean an end to the era of austerity politics that has had an ideational dominance over fiscal policies during the last two decades.

2019/20

  • Daniela Fuhrmann, University of Zurich, Title: Margery Kempe: The Benefits of Being Late
  • Kailey Rocker, PhD Candidate of Anthropology (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Title: Telling the Truth through Mise-en-scene: The Art of Translating the Recent Past in Post-Socialist Albania
  • Salta Zhumatova, University of British Columbia
  • Philip Resnick, University of British Columbia
  • Hilal Kina, PhD Candidate of Anthropology, University of British Columbia

2018/19

  • Kelsey Norman, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow (Political Science, UBC): “Migration Diplomacy in the Mediterranean Region: Before and After the 2015 ‘Crisis'”
  • Ian Beacock, IES Visiting Scholar (Ph.D. Candidate in History, Stanford): “Democratic Emotions & the Unravelling of the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933”
  • Şule Yaylacı, Postdoctoral Fellow (Sociology, UBC): “Trust in Civil Wars: Wartime Transformations of Social Trust”
  • Başak Kale, Associate Professor (International Relations, Middle East Technical University): “Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Understanding and Analysing High Social Acceptance and Reluctant Social Cohesion”
  • Sara Pavan, Postdoctoral Fellow (Political Science, UBC): “The state and immigrant civil society: friends or foes?”
  • Heidi Tworek, Assistant Professor (History, UBC): “News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications,1900-1945”
  • Camille Desmares, Ph.D. Student (Political Science, UBC): “Naturalization Policy and Politics of Belonging in France (1945-1975)”

2017/18

  • Sara Pavan: “Going Political: Integration Policies, Group Resources and the Opportunities for Immigrants’ Political Voice”
  • Conrad King: “The Politics of Subsystems: Agenda Management and Policy Change in Education”
  • Antje Ellermann: “Political Insulation and the Comparative Politics of Immigration”
  • Jonathan Hall: “Intersectionality, Altruism and War”
  • Caroline Schultz: “The implementation of access policies – immigration offices and the work permit for asylum-seekers and ‘tolerated’ persons in Germany”
  • Chase Foster: “The Politics of Delegation: Competition Law and State Development in the European Union and United States”
  • Şule Yaylacı: “Variations in the Salience of Ethnic Identity in Civil War”

Speaker Series

IES European Transitions Speaker Series (2020/21)

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Robert Braun, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Braun argues that national border crossings act as focal points for xenophobia. The convergence of two distinct mechanisms produces this pattern. First, when the nation-state is under pressure, border crossings make cross-national differences salient, producing a perceived link between international forces and socio-economic problems among those who are losing social status. Second, border crossings come to symbolize international threats and attract aggressive nationalist mobilization by radical movements. In this distinct spatial landscape, ethnic outsiders – groups that transcend the nation- become scapegoats for broader social problems facing the community. Braun develops his argument through the study of local variation in antisemitism in Weimar Germany before the Holocaust. Statistical analysis of Jewish bogeyman and in-depth explorations of local reports on antisemitism reveal how Weimar pluralism started eroding among small business owners and market producing farmers living at the margins of the state. Through the demonstration that borders between nations activate borders within nations, this paper sheds new light on the complicated relationship between pluralism and state formation by drawing attention to the spatial sources of xenophobia.

Oliver Schmidtke, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Centre for Global Studies, Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics, University of Victoria

Western democracies are confronted with the rise of populist parties that are fueled by strong anti-establishment sentiments. In particular right-wing, nationalist forces have gained considerable support with their anti-immigrant agenda and changed the landscape of party politics throughout Europe and North America. What we have witnessed with the surge of right-wing populism is a profound weakening of democratic processes and institutions (constitutional division of power, free press, and independent judiciary). The presentation will consider the driving forces behind the electoral success of right-wing populism and the effects it has on liberal democracy. Oliver Schmidtke is a Professor in the Departments of Political Science and History at the University of Victoria where he also holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics. He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence. He currently serves as the director of the Centre for Global Studies in Victoria. His research interests are in the fields of the politics and governance of migration, citizenship, nationalism, and populism.

Hannah Alarian, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Abstract – Do local immigrant voting rights increase citizenship acquisition? Although some contend immigrants acquire citizenship when the relative benefits of acquisition are greater than its costs, Prof. Alarian posits that immigrant inclusion is path dependent – such that early suffrage could encourage rather than deter naturalization. This theory was tested with a series of cross-national and quantitative case-study analyses. First, Prof. Alarian examined the effect of municipal suffrage on naturalization in the EU using bilateral OECD acquisition figures among 14 EU destinations and 127 non-EU origins between 2007 and 2014. Second, she estimated the causal effect of non-EU suffrage by exploiting origin-specific variation in access to Spain’s 2011 municipal elections. Across each analysis, Prof. Alarian finds local voting rights increases formal membership. She further reveals these patterns are not present for other forms of non-citizen political rights. These findings challenge cost-benefit approaches to national membership, revealing suffrage reinforces rather than degrades citizenship. Hannah M. Alarian is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida, where she also is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship and Center for European Studies. Her research examines topics of migrant integration, immigration, political identity and participation, and public policy. Her research broadly examines the processes through which immigrants are included in and excluded from their new societies.


IES European Transitions Speaker Series (2019/20)

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Jane Gingrich, Magdalen College, University of Oxford

Robert Braun, University of California, Berkeley This event was cancelled due to COVID-19.


IES European Transitions Speaker Series (2018/19)


IES Migration and Diversity Speaker Series (2017/18)

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Sara Wallace Goodman, University of California, Irvine

Michael Doyle, Columbia University Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science

Donna Gabaccia, University of Toronto Co-sponsored by Green College, Departments of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies; History; Geography; Sociology

Intergenerational Occupational Mobility and Far-Right Party Support in Europe

Ongoing 2020. This research was financially supported by the Institute for European Studies.

Researchers

Dr. Alan M. Jacobs (Professor of Political Science)

Research Assistant

Daniel Rojas Lozano (PhD Student of Political Student)

Project Summary

The literature on the rise of far-right parties in advanced democracies has been characterized by a vibrant debate over the degree to which cultural, as opposed to economic factors, drive far-right party support. Efforts to identify material causes of far-right support – such as the economic circumstances of working-class voters – have mostly been temporally narrow in focus, emphasizing current economic conditions and short-run changes. This project, a collaboration with Professor Mark Kayser (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin) examines the role of long-term, intergenerational developments in shaping support for far-right political parties in Western Europe. Specifically, we are testing the hypothesis that the long-run experience of downward intergenerational occupational mobility – workers finding themselves on a lower occupational rung than their parents – generates a subjective sense of loss of social status and, in turn, makes voters more susceptible to far-right parties’ anti-system, nativist appeals. At the same time, we hypothesize that short-term economic shocks – such as an individual’s loss of a job, occupational status, or income – drive voters to parties of the left, rather than to the far right, since the left offers policies that directly compensate for economic loss. We are testing the first argument using individual-level European Social Survey data for 10 countries from 2002 to 2016. We test the second argument using high-quality panel data from three countries: the German Socio-Economic Panel, the Swiss Household Panel, and the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences. Panel data allow us to test for these effects in a manner better insulated against threats to causal identification than is possible with the purely cross-sectional European Social Survey data. By distinguishing between the effects of short-term and long-term, intergenerational economic developments, this project has the potential to enrich our understanding of how material forces shape the political context of rightwing populism.

GRA Contribution

A Graduate Research Assistantship grant from the UBC Institute for European Studies allowed me to hire UBC Political Science PhD student Daniel Rojas Lozano to work on this project. Rojas has so far undertaken two key tasks to allow us to analyze the German and Swiss panel data. (1) Rojas has helped us identify survey items from the two panel studies that capture the set of concepts that we need to measure. These range from respondents’ and their parents’ occupations to income, educational attainment, social and political attitudes, and voting intentions and history. (2) Rojas wrote an R script that extracts these variables from the two surveys’ original masterfiles, generating analyzable datasets. Thanks to IES support and Rojas’ contributions, we now are in a position to analyze panel data from the 20 waves of the Swiss panel dataset and the 35 waves of the German dataset, together with previously extracted Dutch LISS data, to test for the short-term effects of intrapersonal economic changes on the likelihood of voting for far-left and far-right parties.

From Austerity to Mutual Spending? The Frugal Four and the Fiscal Policy Regime of the EU

Completed 2020. This research was financially supported by the Institute for European Studies.

Project Name

From Austerity to Mutual Spending? The Frugal Four and the Fiscal Policy Regime of the EU

Researchers

Dr. Kurt Huebner (Professor of Political Science, Jean Monnet for European Integration and Global Political Economy) (PI)

Research Assistant

Henrik Jacobsen (PhD Student of Political Science)

This project looks at the fiscal implications of the coronacrisis and the political dynamics evolving around the distribution of financial recovery funds in the EU. Twelve years after the global financial crisis and ten years after the start of the eurozone crisis, governments around the world again are in crisis-fighting mode. Covid-19 led to various levels of economic lockdowns, eventually resulting in historical reductions of economic output as well as jumps in unemployment numbers. The OECD (June 2020) stated that the ensuing recession would cause damages as no other recession in the last 100 years. The Spring 2020 Forecast of the European Commission suggested that 2020 will see the most severe EU-wide recession in recent history, which will further widen and deepen the gaps between member states. Governments and central banks, as well as international organizations, quickly started to mobilize enormous financial resources to inject liquidity into economies.

Following a joint political initiative by France and Germany, the Commission of the EU quickly proposed a Recovery Plan that foresaw a volume of overall Euro 750 bn to move member economies on a sustainable growth path. Rather than following the design of rescue packages of the Eurozone crises, France and Germany suggested grant-based programs. These plans immediately met political resistance in some European capitals, which only could be overcome in lengthy negotiations that resulted in a scaled-down version of the initial plan. However, even these scaled-down versions have recently been vetoed by member states such as Hungary and Poland. Why the political opposition in a situation of profound misery? How to interpret the policy changes of the Commission and countries like Germany? And, will the outcome of negotiations avoid a policy turn towards austerity in the next round?

The first part of this ongoing research was presented to the European Studies Community Association Canada in August 2020 as a policy brief. Thanks to the generous support of a grant from the IES, we have the opportunity to revise and extend our ideas from the policy brief into an eventual journal article.

Data and method

This project uses a mixed-methods approach, drawing upon various sources of evidence ranging from EU-wide fiscal data and econometric analysis to comparative case studies of individual member states.

Research output

  • Huebner, K. & Jacobsen, H. (2020). Frugal Four and the Fiscal Policy Regime of the EU. From austerity to mutual spending? Policy Memo for the European Studies Community Association Canada.

Material Culture between Italy and China: Food, Fashion, and Architecture

Completed 2020. This research was financially supported by the Institute for European Studies.

Project Name

“Material Culture between Italy and China: Food, Fashion, and Architecture”

Researchers

Gaoheng Zhang, (Assistant Professor of Italian Studies, FHIS) (PI)

Research Assistant

Han Fei, (PhD candidate in French Studies, FHIS)

Funding

$2,000 IES Research Support

This project will be the base of four chapters in a larger book project that Dr. Zhang has undertaken, tentatively titled “Migration and Culture: Mobility Between Contemporary China and Italy via USA.” In these chapters, Dr. Zhang will examine three case studies of material culture that circulate between Italy and China, which represent significant examples of how migration interacts with culture. These examples will then provide the basis to refine current theoretical and methodological approaches of studying migration and culture more generally.

While Chinese food in Italy was brought by migrants and became the country’s first widely-available non-Italian cuisine, Italian food was the first non-Asian food that gained a distinctive identity in China, first through Italian American chain restaurants and, later on, Italian migrant-managed restaurants. The Chinese migrant-managed garment sector in Prato has been Italy’s and Europe’s foremost manufacturing site for fast fashion, and it has provoked acute social anxiety and politically-driven media debates. Since the 2000s, China has been the largest buyer of higher-end “Made in Italy” fashion outside of the West, the advertising of which at times evokes a quasi-colonial and Orientalist fantasy that asserts superior Italian fashion taste over “Made in China” garments.

For architecture and urban planning, the project focuses on two cases of Italian components transported to Chinese milieus. First, it examines the construction and promotion of the Italian concession in Tianjin in the 1930s, as well as its 2000s transformation into an Italian culture and entertainment hub led by both Italian and Chinese architects. Second, it analyzes Chinese imitations of Venice and compares them with similar constructions in the United States. Dr. Zhang hopes to show the symbolic competition between China and the US through consumption of Italian culture.

The analysis of cuisine, fashion, and architecture required, considers a wide range of primary materials (from archives to visual materials) and several types of migration (e.g., human migration and migration of architectural motifs and significances; mass-scale Chinese migrations and elite Italian migrations), laying grounds for further theorizing of the two key words. The Institute for European Studies’ Summer Research Grant supported this research and facilitated the hiring of a graduate research assistant.

The GRA assisted Dr. Zhang in two main tasks throughout July and August 2020. Han built three bibliographies of primary and secondary materials corresponding to cuisine, clothing, and architecture/urban planning. Each of these bibliographies contains around 50 articles/books and other materials (such as websites). They worked under time restraint because Dr. Zhang needed the references in a relatively short time period so that he was able to write right away. She researched mostly in English and in Chinese, but they also capitalized on her French ability to find materials that would constitute a comparative angle to Italian exports in China in all three areas. Most of the RA hours were spent on researching this.

Han was also responsible for re-designing the website: https://mobilitiesitalychina.com/, which is ongoing. Dr. Zhang have been working with three persons on this project, the other two being the writers of the sections. Han has already begun re-organizing the sections on the website, as they wait for the drafts of the writings to be finalized in November 2020.

The Comparative Study of Campaigns

Researchers

Richard Johnston (PI)

Research Assistants

Alexandre Rivard, Sarah Lachance, Aaron Buffie, Spencer McKay

Funding

SSHRC, Humboldt Stiftung (Germany), German Longitudinal Election Study

Project Description

Citizens profess to despise election campaigns, which they see as coarse, expensive, and unnecessarily protracted, and as sites for character assassination if not outright manipulation. The shorter their duration and the less money in play, the better. The view among academic students of campaigns is more benign. More intense campaigns bring out more voters. Negative claims are more truthful than positive ones. Campaigns are on balance, “enlightening,” so much so that they mainly enable the operation of long-term, “fundamental” considerations. Elections without campaigns would be far more random events than are elections with them.

Although most actual research seems to validate the benign view, the research has often been narrowly conceived and willfully myopic. I am building similarly-structured campaign-based survey data files from as many countries and elections as possible. This requires the development of common coding schemes out of what are now quite country-specific ones. The object will be to gauge the extent to which all campaigns activate similar considerations across all countries and from election to election within countries and, alternatively, the extent to electorates can be led to different places, according to how the event is framed.

Project Stage

Data collection, data analysis, writing, building a website.

Recent outputs

  • Campaign Effects. In Kai Arzheimer, Jocelyn Evans, and Michael Lewis-Beck, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Electoral Behaviour. London: Sage, 2017, pp. 709-732.
  • Vote compass in British Columbia: insights from and about published polls. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Policy 8:1 (January 2017): 97-109.
  • Activation of Fundamentals in German Campaigns.In Voters on the Move or on the Run? Information Processing and Vote Choice in a Complex World, eds. Bernard Weßels, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck, Hans Rattinger, and Sigrid Roßteutscher. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 217-237. With Julia Partheymüller and Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck.
  • The Predictable Campaign: Theory and Evidence. Version presented at CPSA 2016 (Calgary) and revised version submitted for APSA 2018. 2018 version with Sarah Lachance (UBC).
  • How do campaigns shape candidate images: Dynamics of candidate traits in the 2005 and 2009 German Bundestag elections. Presented at the 2017 MPSA (Chicago) and APSA annual meetings (San Francisco) and at the Hertie School of Governance, November 23, 2017, Berlin. With Mona Krewel (Cornell) and Julia Partheymüller (Vienna, ex Essex).
  • Campaign Activation in German Elections: Evidence from 2005 and 2009. Presented to the 2012 Annual meeting of the European Political Science Association (Berlin) and the 2013 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting (Chicago). With Julia Partheymüller.

Open Access Dostoevsky Scholarship

Ongoing 2020. This research was financially supported by the Institute for European Studies.

Researchers

Dr. Katherine Bowers (Associate Professor, CENES) (PI)

Research Assistant

Dorothee Leesing (PhD Candidate, CENES)

Funding

$3500 (112 hours of RA support from mid-August to mid-October)

A substantial portion of Dr. Bowers recent research has focused on Dostoevsky’s works, and, in particular, in engagement with the broader Dostoevsky studies community through public outreach and open access initiatives. Some of these have included a 2016 SSHRC Connection Grant-supported outreach project and conference marking the sesquicentenary of the novel Crime and Punishment, a 2016 digital library exhibit focused on Dostoevsky’s life and works, a 2018 co-edited volume devoted to Dostoevsky teaching and learning materials, since 2015 the editorship of the scholarly blog The Bloggers Karamazov, and, most recently, the development of a new website for the International and North American Dostoevsky Societies.

The IES’s Summer Research Support paid for a graduate Research Assistant who helped Dr. Bowers finish two specific open access resources related to these initiatives: the technical and editorial tasks related to creating a searchable online Dostoevsky bibliography and the technical and administrative tasks related to depositing and disseminating the SSHRC Connection Grant conference talk video recordings. For the first part of the project, the graduate RA downloaded scanned pdfs of the back issues of the Dostoevsky Bulletin (1973-1978) and Dostoevsky Studies (1980-2017) from Hathi Trust and used an OCR application to create plain text files of the “Current Bibliography” of each from 1973-2017. The RA checked the files, then passed them on to an RA employed by the University of Toronto Library (a partner on the project) who will construct the database. The bibliography will eventually become a valuable resource and record of the field available to Dostoevsky scholars and the public via the International Dostoevsky Society website. For the second part of the project, the graduate RA converted, edited, and prepared 31 raw video files from the Crime and Punishment at 150 conference. These files are now ready to upload to UBC’s institutional repository once the documentation for each is finalized. The video collection will be housed on UBC’s cIRcle repository and available open access, linked via the conference website, the IDS website, and library catalogues worldwide.

While the work completed on these projects seems mundane, in both cases, the progress made thanks to the IES Summer Research Support grant was substantial. Both projects had been inactive for years due to a lack of resources. Jumpstarting them this summer/fall is an important investment in the broader field of Dostoevsky studies. The conference video collection includes a number of talks featuring new directions for considering Dostoevsky’s novel that are shaping the field today. This collection will help disseminate these approaches and make them widely available, enabling scholars who did not attend the conference to also engage with its ideas. While this project focuses on recent developments, the bibliography project looks at the history of our field more broadly as described in the “Current Bibliography” historically and meticulously kept by the late June Pachuta Farris and preserves it in a searchable, easy to access format for generations to come.

Democratic Health Communications during Covid-19: A RAPID Response