Events

The Unconstitutional Constitution - Kim Lane Scheppele
Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 5:30 pm

The Department of Political Science, CEU cordially invites you to attend the first lecture in the series Hungary in the Spotlight, "The Unvonstitutional Constitution" delivered by Kim Lane Scheppele on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 5:30 pm in the CEU Auditorium. Opening and introduction by Gabor Toka, Professor; discussant Renata Uitz, Professor of Law.
Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values, as well as Director of the Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University. She joined the Princeton faculty in 2005 after nearly a decade on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, where she was the John J. O’Brien Professor of Comparative Law. Before that, her primary appointment was in the political science department at the University of Michigan. From 1994-1998, Scheppele lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both ELTE and Central European University. Scheppele’s work concentrates on the intersection of constitutional and international law, particularly in constitutional systems under stress. After 1989, Scheppele studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods. Since 9/11, Scheppele has researched the effects of the international “war on terror” on constitutional protections around the world. In short, when the Berlin Wall fell, she studied the transition of countries from police states to constitutional rule-of-law states and after the Twin Towers fell, she studied the process in reverse. Her many publications on both post-1989 constitutional transitions and on post-9/11 constitutional challenges have appeared in law reviews, social science journals and in many languages (including Russian, Hungarian and French). Her new book is called The International State of Emergency: The Rise of Global Security Law. It will appear in 2013 (Harvard University Press). Her previous book, Legal Secrets, won Special Recognition in the Distinguished Scholarly Publication competition of the American Sociological Association, as well as the Corwin Prize from the American Political Science Association.

CFP: ON THE SCOPE OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: Relational and Non-relational Views
July 5-7, 2012

The Department of Political Science, CEU and the Global Justice Network calls for paper proposal on the scope of distributive justice: relational and non-relational views. Should duties of distributive justice extend to humanity at large or be limited to compatriots? The debate about the proper scope of distributive duties explores whether the concern with individual distributive shares is grounded in our shared humanity, as cosmopolitans claim, or rather duties of justice arise only among those who are subject to the same coercive political institutions, participate in a shared social practice, or share in the same culture, as proponents of the so-called practice-dependent view hold. Parallel to this debate, discussions in the theory of justice have focused increasingly on the problem whether an egalitarian distribution of social resources has independent moral significance, as distributive conceptions propose, or instead any profile of distribution is morally desirable only insofar that it advances egalitarian social and political relations, as social-relational conceptions of justice claim. The workshop aims to bring together these two debates in contemporary political theory, with the expectation that insights from one may shed new light on problems discussed in the other. We especially welcome papers that aim to bridge the two problems, but also interested in papers with new insights in either of the two fields. We welcome papers that discuss general theoretical problems as well as those with a practical political focus.
Keynote Speakers: Simon Caney (Oxford University) and Samuel Scheffler (New York University)
CEU Organizers: Andres Moles and Zoltan Miklosi together with Orsolya Reich and Eszter Kollar
To apply, please send us an abstract of max. 500 words by January 30th 2012 to the email address: ceuglobaljustice@gmail.com
Accepted participants will be notified by March 1^st, 2012.
For inquiries please write to Eszter Kollar or Zoltan Miklosi

Fighting Corruption - Is There a Market-based Alternative?
Dec 1, 2011; 13:00

Codru Vrabie, a former director and board member of Transparency International, Romanian Chapter, currently a trainer and consultant in the field of public administration and public service reform in Romania, delivers a public talk on Fighting Corruption. The talk is chaired by Agnes Batory from the Public Policy Department. For more info, download the flyer.

Political Psychology Networking Conference for the Post-Communist Region
November 25- 27, 2011 Budapest, Hungary

The Department of Political Science, the Political Behavior Research Group (PolBeRG) at the Central European University (CEU) together with the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) cordially invites you to the Political Psychology Networking Conference for the Post-Communist Region. Keynote speakers for the conference will include Dinka Corkalo Biruski (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Zagreb), Bert Klandermans (ISPP President and Professor at Vrije Universiteit), Alex Mintz (Editor-in-Chief of Political Psychology and Professor and Dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya), and David Redlawsk (Rutgers University). For more info, check out the POLBERG page.

Why was there a Civil War in Spain: a Comparative Perspective
Oct 20, 2011; 13:30. Julian Casanova, Zaragoza University

Between 1910 and 1931 various Republics emerged in Europe, democratic regimes, or with democratic aspirations, that replaced hereditary monarchies that had been established for centuries there. Most of them, significantly those such as the German, Austrian and Czech republics, had been established as a result of their defeat in the First World War. The sequence had begun in Portugal, with the overthrow of the monarchy in 1910, and the Spanish Republic was the last to be proclaimed. The only example that survived as a democracy during those years until the outbreak of the Second World War was the Irish Republic, created in 1922. All the others were overthrown by counter-revolutionary military uprisings, authoritarian movements or Fascists. But the coup d’état of July 1936 was the only one that led to a civil war. And this difference needs to be explained.

Rethinking the “Presidentialism Debate”: Coalitional Politics in Cross-Regional Perspective
Sept 29, 2011; 13:30. Nic Cheeseman (University Lecturer in African Politics, Oxford University - Hugh Price Fellow, Jesus College)

Dr Cheeseman works in the field of comparative politics with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and processes of democratization. His most recent research has focused on the question of how African leaders and ruling parties have manipulated institutional and patronage structures in order to construct and protect power, which strategies have proved the most effective, and what impact this has had on processes of democratization. Looking particularly at the experience of Africa's one-party states, he has mainly been concerned to explain why and how different patronage structures mobilize support, why some political parties prove to be more durable than others, and why some governments survive while others do not. Dr Cheeseman is also interested in electoral politics in contemporary Africa, and how ethnicity, patronage, and party structures, influence the attempts of leaders to mobilise support.

Summerschool - Welfare States of Eastern and Western Europe
June 27- July 5, 2011 Budapest, Hungary

Anil Duman, Course Director, organizes this summer course that targets PhD-students who have started or are about to start a project related to welfare and social policy in Eastern and Western Europe. Topics that will be addressed are the comparative analysis of welfare state and social policy reform, role of social actors, policies for work and welfare reconciliation, social protection, immigrant integration, welfare regimes and labor markets. The course also aims to address methodological issues of comparative research in East and West European welfare and social policy. For more info, download the flyer.

Summerschool - Justice: Theory and Applications
July 4-11, 2011 Budapest, Hungary

Andres Moles and Zoltan Miklosi, professors at the CEU Political Science Department organize a summer school course on Justice: Theory and Applications, July 4-11, 2011 Budapest, Hungary. Applications are invited from graduate students, postdocs, young faculty. Appication Deadline February 15, 2011. For more info, download the flyer.

Double Diffusion: the Co-Evolution of Protest and Police Diffusion
Sidney Tarrow ( Cornell University)
1 Dec. 2010, part of the Political Science Doctoral Seminarl

Transnational protests we define as protests that mainly address international targets and involve a substantive number of protesters from different countries (della Porta and Tarrow 2005). We do not include in this category of protests either the intervention of one country’s activists in another country’s conflicts (Keck and Sikkink 1998), or the framing of domestic protests with global themes (Tarrow 2005: ch. 4). We are interested in the more demanding effort of protesters from a variety of countries to create transnational protest coalitions (della Porta 2007; Tarrow 2005: ch. 9). We will show that there is a match between innovative protester tactics and the responses of police forces to their behavior. We will also show that the behavior of both sets of actors is strategic, with each responding to both their own past practices and to those of their adversaries in a process of interactive social learning.

The U.S. Exit Strategy from Iraq—Plans and Perspectives
Paul O’Friel, Counselor of the Embassy of the United States, Budapest
30 Nov. 2010, co-organized with Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council

Paul C. O’Friel was the leader of the U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team for the Iraqi province of Muthanna before arriving to be the Political-Economic Counselor for the American Embassy in Budapest. In our discussion, co-organized by the Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council and the Department of Political Sciences at CEU, we will rely on Mr. O’Friel’s expertise and first-hand experience to evaluate the past achievements of the U.S. mission in Iraq, assessing the outcomes of the Surge, the military capacity building and the PRT concept, as well as the prospects of Iraq with respect to the drawdown and the exit strategy of the U.S. We will also discuss what possible shared regional responsibilities and commitments the U.S. and Iraq may encounter in the future.

United Nations Resolution 1325 and Post Cold War Feminist Politics
Thursday, 25 Nov. 2010, part of the Political Science Doctoral Seminar

The Department cordially invites you to a a public talk presented by Carol Harrington, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Social movement scholars credit feminist transnational advocacy networks with putting violence against women on the UN security agenda, as evidenced by resolution 1325 and numerous other UN Security Council statements on gender, peace, and security. Such accounts neglect the significance of super power politics for shaping the aims of women’s bureaucracies and NGOs in the UN system. This article highlights how the fall of the Soviet Union transformed the delineation of ‘women’s issues’ at the United Nations and calls attention to the extent that the new focus upon ‘violence against women’ has been shaped by the post Cold War US global policing practices. Resolution 1325’s call for gender-mainstreaming of peacekeeping operations reflects the tension between feminist advocates’ increased influence in security discourse and continuing reports of peacekeeper perpetrated sexual violence, abuse and exploitation.

Regimes of Public Memory
Thursday, 28 Oct. 2010, part of the Political Science Doctoral Seminar

The Department cordially invites you to a a public talk presented by Djordje Pavicevic (Research fellow, University of Belgrade, Serbia. The paper is presentation of the work in progress based on the larger project of analysis of political memory regimes. It is an incomplete conceptualization of the argument articulated on the background of Serbian experiences with political effects of the living past articulated as political memory judgments. The argument says that for effective functioning of political societies some kind of stabilization of public memory is necessary. Stabilization has to respect the inherent logic of memory related to exercise of public power. This logic is inherently normative, and the task of political theory is to offer criteria for its evaluation.

The Global Financial Crisis: Origins, Responses, Prognosis
Thursday, 14 Oct. 2010, part of the Political Science Doctoral Seminar

The Department cordially invites you to a a public talk presented by Hermann Schwartz, University of Virginia. Prof. Schwartz will talk about America ’s ability to securitize large quantities of mortgage debt and sell it into global markets that enabled the US economy to temporarily escape the normal economic constraints, to grow faster than its peer competitors, and to expand its firms’ control over global production chains. These three conditions restored US global economic power after the troubling 1970s and 1980s. Yet the financial deregulation and innovation that permitted securitization also created the conditions for the subsequent financial crash. This chapter thus has four parts. Part one defines power and establishes that US economic power grew during the past two decades when judged by the three criteria noted above. Part two shows that the structure of the American housing finance system was the source of the growth differential between the United States and its peer competitors during the long 1990s. Part three shows how the current crisis emerged endogenously from the 1990s boom. Part four looks forward in order to offer some conclusions. It considers how the current crisis may change relations between the United States and its largest creditor, China, and the United States and its rich country peer competitors.

Reconciliation in Afghanistan
Tuesday, 21 September 2010, Gellner Room, Central European University, Budapest

The Department cordially invites you to a a public talk presented by Michael Semple, Anna Lindh Research fellow at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Michael Semple is a leading expert on the Taliban, the Pashtun tribes and Afghan politics. He has worked in Afghanistan since 1989, most recently as Deputy to the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan. He is recognized internationally as a key proponent of political approaches to dealing with the conflict in Afghanistan, including “talking to the Taliban”. His experience as development worker, political officer and conflict negotiator give him an unparalleled network into most elements of Afghan and Pakistani society. He has recently authored a book, Reconciliation in Afghanistan (2009), published by the United States Institute of Peace and articles in international publications such as Foreign Affairs.

Conference on “Democracy and Legitimacy: Dealing with Extremism"
Organizers: Andres Moles, Zoltan Miklosi, and Peter Molnar
22–23 July 2010 , Co-hosted with the Department of Philosophy and Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS)

Twenty years after the fall of Communism we are witnessing a significant rise in support for right-wing political parties across Europe. In the last European elections the vote shifted dramatically to the right. Extreme-right political parties have fared well recently in the UK, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. All of these countries currently have representatives from far-right parties in the European Parliament. Many analysts suggest that people are turning to extremist groups as a reaction to (what they perceive as) shortcomings of democratic regimes. The conference has two central missions: on the one hand we aim to discuss how the recent ‘turn to the right’ might affect liberal democracy and what can be done about it. On the other hand, we plan to do this by bringing together experts in both political theory, legal studies, public and social policy. We believe that cross-fertilisation is beneficial for all camps of enquiry. Therefore, we invite contributions both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.

Reinventing EU Enlargement: Macedonia and the Western Balkans Integrating Europe’s Inner Courtyard
Ronald C. Monticone (Professor of Political Science, Queensborough Division of the City University of New York, 1965-1999)
3 June 2010, Gellner Room

“The Changing Balance of Power” is an article which traces the history of the balance of power in the world from the beginning of the modern nation-state system in 1648 to the present and then makes some predictions about the balance of power in the future. The article begins by discussing the concept of the balance of power and how it ensures not only stability in a system composed of a number of sovereign states but also the independence of most states as well. The bulk of the article is devoted to the period since the end of World War II.

The Changing Balance of Power
HE Ambassador Darko Angelov, Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of Hungary
31 May 2010, Gellner Room

On June 2nd, in Sarajevo, the European Union will host an EU-Western Balkans summit marking the tenth anniversary since the launching of the new enlargement track, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, first signed by the Republic of Macedonia in 2001. A decade later, it is time to reflect on what the countries of the region have achieved and what the EU has accomplished when it comes to integrating its inner courtyard. We can asses now that the Western Balkans has exactly remained this, an inner courtyard of the Union, a region encircled by EU member states, new and old. Whilst this creates incentives for an accelerated approximation of the countries of the region into the EU, prolonged be it, as it is, this also produces frustration, a potential for instability as well as missed economic opportunities, both for the aspiring countries themselves as well as the EU. The EU needs a sober perspective at the Western Balkans; moreover it needs to follow its own assessments and values, and should start the accession talks. This would send a major signal across the region that painful reforms do provide for tangible results, as it is tangibility that the region needs not empty rhetoric. The Western Balkan countries need the EU as well as the Union needs them. Not a cliché, this statement has a deep political, security, and economic rationale for both sides of the equation. The Hungarian presidency of the EU in 2011 will be an opportunity for the Union to pay a more substantial focus to its southeast inner courtyard and make for Sarajevo not to be just a flashpoint in a long list of courteous conferences.

ELECDEM workshop in Electoral Survey Design

Friday 30 April – Tuesday 4 May, 2010. Central European University, Budapest

The Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) will bring together 11 expert teams from 9 European countries to provide substantive and methodological training in elections research to a cohort of early stage and experienced researchers. The research projects draw on cross-national election studies, European Election Study, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems,  and industry partners TNS-Opinion and Kieskompas to provide training and research opportunities.

ELECDEM proposes a comprehensive approach to the study of electoral democracy using cross-nationally comparative databases, content analysis and experiments in order to examine the impact of globalisation, technological developments in communication and institutional change on representation and accountability. The three network themes are:

1. Globalisation, Diversity and Elections
2. Institutions, Mobilisation and Preferences
3. Communication, Mobilisation and Preferences.

Speakers at the event include:

• Pascal Chelala, TNS Opinion
• Mark Franklin, EUI
• Elisabeth Gidengil, McGill Univeristy
• Richard Johnston, Uiversity of British Columbia and ELECDEM Visiting Scientist
• Arthur Lupia, University of Michigan
• Willem Saris, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• Lynn Vavreck, University of California, Los Angeles

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The Department and cordially invites to to an exclusive direct videoconference (including opportunity to ask questions), accompanying conference of the NATO Defense Ministers Meeting 22. October, 2009 (Thursday) Popper room (CEU, Nador u. 9).

The Program includes:
09:50 - 10:50 Vision of NATO in the Changing Security Environment
H. E. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General
11:00 – 12:30 The Impact of Economic Crises on European Defense Budgets
H. E. Franz Josef Jung – Federal Minister of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany
Quentin Peel (chair)– International Affairs Editor, Financial Times, London
Marshall Billingslea – Former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment, and former US Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy, Washington D. C.
Malcolm Chalmers – Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, London
Peter Blaschke – Chief Executive Officer of BWI Informationstechnik GmbH, Meckenheim

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The Department and the ERSTE Foundation invite you to a Panel Discussion, followed by a reception, on "Reclaiming Democracry: Civil Society and Electoral Change in Central and Eastern Europe.
The panel will be moderated by Zsolt Enyedi, Head of department, and participants include Jörg Forbrig, Senior Program Officer, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Berlin; Miljenko Dereta, Executive Director of Civic Initiatives, Belgrade; and Iryna Chupryna, Political Analyst, Kyiv.
The event takes place on October 15, 2009, 13:30 p.m. Gellner Room.

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The Department invites you to the ESCAS Conference 2009, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 3-5 September 2009
The European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS) and Central European University (CEU) invite scholars to attend the ESCAS XI conference, which will take place on September 3-5, 2009, in Budapest, Hungary. The event will be hosted by the Asia Research Initiative at Central European University.
European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS) emerged out of an informal collaboration among Europe-based scholars with the purpose of promoting joint research and interdisciplinary studies on Central Asia in 1985. Cooperation was later institutionalized in 1995 when the Society was established. ESCAS holds bi-annual conferences on Central Asian Studies in Europe. For more information see: http://www.escas.pz.nl/
The CEU Asia Research Initiative (ARI)is a research center established in 2009 to conduct research, generate and disseminate knowledge on Asia. ARI takes a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach to studying social, political, economic and cultural dynamics in the region in partnership with academic institutions, governmental and intergovernmental organizations, and civil society.
For more information about registration and for a preliminary program, please visit the conference website: http://www.escas.pz.nl/main.php?obj_id=751930146

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The Department welcomes you to two PhD dissertation defenses in June. Andrija Henjak will defend his PhD dissertation on Socioeconomic Change, Changing Political Cleavages, and the Emergence of New Parties on 25 June 2009, 11 a.m in CEU's Senate Room.
Gabriela Borz will defend her PhD dissertation on Determinants of Party Unity in Europe. A Comparative Study of Parliamentary Parties in Twenty-three Countries on 26 June 2009, 11 a.m. in CEU's Senate Room.

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Natalia Timus defends her PhD dissertation "The Influence of European Integration on Party and Party System Development in East European Neighborhood" on 16 June 2009, 10 am, in the Gellner Room.

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The Department is proud to announce that the student organized Second Graduate Network Conference, entitled “Understanding Complexity: Methodology and Research Design in the Social Sciences” will take place on December 11-14, 2008.

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Gabor Toka, Professor at the Department of Political Science was announced as a winner of the Bibo Prize by the Board of the Istvan Bibo Democracy Foundation and the Presidium of the Hungarian Political Science Association. The prize, which can be received only once in a lifetime, is given to Hungarian scholars for outstanding achievement in political science. Toka will deliver the Bibo lecture later this year, in early December.

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