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Thomas Olechowski

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Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair at The Europe Center, 2025
Professor of Austrian and European Legal History, University of Vienna
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Prof. Dr. Thomas Olechowski holds a chair for Austrian and European Legal History at the University of Vienna, where he heads the Legal Sources Research Center. He is a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and is chair of its Commission for Austrian Legal History. He is also managing director of the Hans Kelsen Institute, a foundation set up by the Austrian Federal Government. 

Olechowski has authored or co-authored six monographs and well over a hundred academic articles. His most important areas of research are the life and work of the Austro-American legal philosopher Hans Kelsen, the Austrian constitutional history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of constitutional justice and administrative justice, and the Paris Peace Treaties 1919/20. Olechowski has taught regularly in Vienna and Bratislava (Slovakia). He gave lectures in Austria as well as in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay. 

At Stanford, he will teach Fundamentals of European Constitutional History in Winter Quarter 2025.

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Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-25
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Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and was previously a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.

Alex’s work focuses on political parties and group identity in Western Europe, in macro-historical perspective. A core theme of her research is understanding how different patterns of political and social organization combine to shape the ‘arena’ of electoral politics and the opportunity space for new competitors.

In her ongoing book project, Alex studies the different ways in which outsider parties articulate group identities and invoke narratives of social conflict in order to gain a foothold in electoral competition. Empirically, the project employs a mixed-methods approach — including qualitative case studies and quantitative text analysis — to compare processes of party-building and entry across five distinct ‘episodes’ of party formation in Western Europe: early twentieth-century socialists, interwar fascists, green and ethno-regionalist parties in the post-war period, and the contemporary far right.

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Tilly Goes to Church: The Religious and Medieval Roots of European State Fragmentation

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The starting point for many analyses of European state development is the historical fragmentation of territorial authority. The dominant bellicist explanation for state formation argues that this fragmentation was an unintended consequence of imperial collapse, and that warfare in the early modern era overcame fragmentation by winnowing out small polities and consolidating strong states. Using new data on papal conflict and religious institutions, I show instead that political fragmentation was the outcome of deliberate choices, that it is closely associated with papal conflict, and that political fragmentation persisted for longer than the bellicist explanations would predict. The medieval Catholic Church deliberately and effectively splintered political power in Europe by forming temporal alliances, funding proxy wars, launching crusades, and advancing ideology to ensure its autonomy and power. The roots of European state formation are thus more religious, older, and intentional than often assumed.

Awarded the Best Article Prize by the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association in June 2024.

Awarded the Heinz I. Eulau Award for Best Article Published in American Political Science Review in July 2025.

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American Political Science Review
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Anna Grzymała-Busse
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Erasing Memories: The Suppression of Civic Commemorative Initiatives in Modern Russia

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This paper explores the suppression of civic commemorative initiatives in post-Soviet Russia, particularly in the context of historical politics and national memory. The study traces the trajectory of policies regarding the commemoration of terror victims in this period, the resistance faced by such initiatives, and some of the main motives behind the state’s efforts to control historical narratives. A significant focus is on the impact of the invasion of Ukraine in accelerating the trends of historical suppression. The findings suggest a deliberate and systematic approach by the state to manipulate public perception of history to consolidate power, promote a unified national identity, and suppress alternative interpretations that could challenge the state’s narrative. This research contributes to our understanding of historical politics in Russia and the broader implications of state-controlled narratives in shaping public memory and identity. It also underscores the challenges faced by civil society in preserving historical truth in an increasingly repressive socio-political environment.

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How the Popes Helped Luther: Territorial Fragmentation and the Diffusion of Protestant Ideology

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Under what conditions do powerful ideological movements arise and transform politics? The Protestant Reformation changed the religious, social, and economic landscape of Europe. While the existing literature has focused on the mechanisms and institutions of its spread, this article argues that an important precondition for the spread of the Protestant Reformation was territorial fragmentation, and the political autonomy it offered local rulers. Local rulers could then protect the reform movement both from central authorities, and from local rivals. Where power was centralized, kings could more easily either adopt or defeat the new religion. Using a data set that includes measures of territorial fragmentation, I find that it is strongly associated with the rise and diffusion of the Protestant Reformation. Local political heterogeneity can thus protect and diffuse ideological innovations.

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Journal of Historical Political Economy
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Book Talk with Güneş Murat Tezcür — Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies

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Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies | Book Talk with Güneş Murat Tezcür

Why do some religious minorities, lacking any significant power and presenting no imminent threat, provoke the ire of popular groups and become targets of violent attacks? Tezcür's book offers the first comparative-historical study of mass atrocities targeting certain liminal minorities that are stigmatized across generations, as they lack theological recognition and social acceptance from a dominant religious group. The combination of hatred based on religious stigmas and political resentment becomes the spark leading to mass violence against these minorities. Case studies, utilizing a rich variety of original sources, focus on anti-Yezidi genocidal attacks in Iraq and anti-Alevi massacres in Turkey.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the Middle Eastern Studies Forum, and CDDRL's Program on Turkey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Güneş Murat Tezcür (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2005) is the Director of the School of Politics and Global Studies at the Arizona State University. He is also a professor in the same school. He is primarily a scholar of darker shades of human experience and explores the trajectories and legacies of political violence and politics of identity with a focus on Iranian, Kurdish, and Turkish human geography as well as the United States. His scholarship has appeared in many leading scholarly journals. His newest book is Liminal Minorities: Religion and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies (Cornell University Press, 2024). He most recently edited The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics (Oxford University Press, 2022). His scholarship has been supported by a variety of entities including the National Science Foundation, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and United States Institute of Peace. 

Encina Commons Room 119
615 Crothers Way, Stanford

Güneş Murat Tezcür
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U.S.-Russian Nuclear Cooperation: Insights from History

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With arms control in crisis and strategic stability in jeopardy, it is worth remembering the remarkable success of nuclear cooperation between the United States and Russia in the late Cold War and post-Cold War periods, often referred to as the 'Golden Age of Arms Control'. In an effort to understand the current deterioration in U.S.-Russian arms control, this article presents a history of bilateral cooperation since the 1980s from both the American and Russian perspectives. We describe its past successes and investigate the current impasse using historical analysis and a collection of interviews with former diplomats, negotiation participants, and academics. From this analysis, we offer recommendations on best practices to reinvigorate arms control talks based on the historical lessons of success.

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Public Opinion in Palestine Before the Conflict

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Public Opinion in Palestine Before the Conflict

On the eve of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, Arab Barometer completed its 8th wave survey in Palestine. The findings offer unique insight into the views of ordinary Palestinians living in both the West Bank and Gaza.

In this event, guest speakers Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins will provide an overview of the views of government, living conditions, views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and international actors. This includes low levels of support for most existing political actors and increasingly difficult economic situations for Palestinians. Jamal and Robbins find that Palestinians want a peaceful solution and are wary of normalization that does not provide a solution to this broader problem. They find limited support for most international actors, but do find indications of which countries may be better placed to help bring an end to the conflict and work to rebuild Gaza once the conflict comes to an end.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Amaney Jamal

Amaney A. Jamal is Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Jamal also directs the Workshop on Arab Political Development and the Bobst-AUB Collaborative Initiative. She is the former President of the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS). The focus of her current research is on the drivers of political behavior in the Arab world, Muslim immigration to the US and Europe, and the effect of inequality and poverty on political outcomes. Jamal’s books include Barriers to Democracy (2007), which explores the role of civic associations in promoting democratic effects in the Arab world (winner of the 2008 APSA Best Book Award in comparative democratization). She is co-editor of Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects (2007) and Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11 (2009). Her most recent book, Of Empires and Citizens, was published by Princeton University Press (2012). Jamal is co-principal investigator of the Arab Barometer Project, winner of the Best Dataset in the Field of Comparative Politics (Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Dataset Award 2010); co-PI of the Detroit Arab American Study, a sister survey to the Detroit Area Study; and senior advisor on the Pew Research Center projects focusing on Islam in America (2006) Global Islam (2010) and Islam in America (2017). Ph.D. University of Michigan. In 2005, Jamal was named a Carnegie Scholar.
 

Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins is the director and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer. He has been a part of the research network since its inception and serving as director since 2014. He has led or overseen more than 100 surveys in international contexts and is a leading expert in survey methods on ensuring data quality. His work on Arab public opinion, political Islam, and political parties has been published in Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Democracy and Foreign Affairs. He received the American Political Science Association Aaron Wildavsky Award for the Best Dissertation in the field of Religion and Politics.

Hesham Sallam

Online via Zoom

Amaney Jamal Professor Professor of Politics and International Affairs Princeton School for Public and International Affairs
Michael Robbins Director and Co-Principal Investigator Director and Co-Principal Investigator, Arab Barometer Arab Barometer
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Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series
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Special Lecture with Professor Hui Qin: Misalignment in the Exchange of Ideas between China and the West

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A Special Lecture with Professor Hui Qin
 

中西思想交流中的"问题错位"
Misalignment in the Exchange of Ideas between China and the West


Tuesday, November 7, 2023 | 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm Pacific Time
William J. Perry Room C231, Encina Hall Central, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Please join us for a conversation with Professor Hui Qin. The lecture will be held primarily in Chinese, translation services will not be available. 


About the Speaker 
 

Hui Qin headshot.

Professor Qin Hui (秦晖) is an economic historian best known for his work on peasant studies and an influential public intellectual.  He retired as Professor of History, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, in 2017 and then served as a Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Qin’s academic research is focused on land ownership and peasant wars and, in the last two decades, he has written on many different aspects of China’s rural economy. As a leading figure in rural studies, Qin’s acerbic comments on a wide range of social issues, particularly those concerning  China’s rural population and migrant workers, have earned him many fans. He is a sought-after media commentator in print, on TV and online.


Questions? Contact Alexis Medina at amedina5@stanford.edu
 

William J. Perry Room C231, Encina Hall

Hui Qin, Professor of History, Emeritus, Tsinghua University
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Kumi Naidoo

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Kumi Naidoo is a prominent South African human rights and environmental justice activist. At the age of fifteen, he organized school boycotts against the apartheid educational system in South Africa. His courageous actions made him a target for the Security Police, leading to his exile in the United Kingdom, where he remained until 1990. Upon his return to South Africa, Kumi played a pivotal role in the legalization of the African National Congress in his home province of KwaZulu Natal.

Kumi also served as the official spokesperson for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), responsible for overseeing the country's first democratic elections in April 1994. His dedication to democracy and justice led to notable international roles, including being the first person from the global South to lead Greenpeace International as Executive Director from 2009 to 2016. He later served as the Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2018 to 2020.

In the realm of education, Kumi has shared his expertise, lecturing at Fossil Free University and holding a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship at the Robert Bosch Academy until early 2022.

Currently, Kumi serves as a Senior Advisor for the Community Arts Network (CAN). He holds the position of Distinguished visiting lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and is a Professor of Practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. Additionally, he continues to represent global interests as a Global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace, and Dignity. He also holds positions as a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow at Magdalen College.

In a testament to his family's commitment to positive change, they have established the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism, honoring the legacy of their son and brother, the now late South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through a commitment to supporting artivism and mental health in South Africa.

Kumi has authored and co-authored numerous books, the most recent being Letters To My Mother (2022), a personal and professional memoir that won the HSS 2023 non-fiction award by the National Institute Humanities and Social Sciences.

Payne Distinguished Lecturer, 2023-25
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