Stanford University

Ayatollahs on the Pareto Frontier: Islam, Identity, and Electoral Coordination in Iraq

-

David Patel (speaker) is a 2006-2007 predoctoral fellow at CDDRL (fall quarter) and postdoctoral fellow at CISAC (winter and spring quarters). His dissertation examines questions of religious organization and collective action in the Middle East, with a theoretical focus on the relationship of organization and information in particular. Empirically, his study looks at Islamic institutions and their role in political action in a wide range of settings including 7th century garrison cities of the early Islamic empire, through the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Patel has spent a great deal of time in the Middle East over the last several years, including extended visits to Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, and Iraq, where he spent seven months in Basra conducting research beginning in the fall of 2003. He works with David Laitin, Jim Fearon, and Avner Greif at Stanford.

Patel received his PhD in political science from Stanford University in March 2007. In fall 2007 he will join the faculty at Cornell University as an assistant professor of political science.

Walter W. Powell (respondent) is a professor of education and affiliated professor of organizational behavior, sociology, and communications at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. At Stanford, he is director of the Scandinavian Consortium on Organizational Research. Powell works in the areas of organization theory and economic sociology. He is coauthor of Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing (1983), an analysis of the transformation of book publishing from a family-run, craft-based field into a multinational media industry, and author of Getting Into Print (1985), an ethnographic study of decision-making processes in scholarly publishing houses. He edited The Nonprofit Sector (1987, referred to by reviewers as "the Bible of scholarship on the nonprofit sector"). Powell is currently directing a large scale study, Stanford Project on the Evolution of the Nonprofit Sector, of the circulation of managerial practices in the Bay Area nonprofit community, mapping the flow of ideas among consultants, philanthropists, founders, business leaders, government officials, and nonprofit managers. Powell is widely known for his contributions to institutional analysis, beginning with his article, with Paul DiMaggio, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields" (1983) and their subsequent edited book, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (1991). At Stanford, he is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business, a member of the Public Policy faculty, and serves on the governing board of the France-Stanford program.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

David S. Patel Speaker
Walter W. Powell Professor of Education; Affiliated Professor of Organizational Behavior, Sociology, and Communications Commentator Stanford University
Seminars

Persian Dilemmas: The Discouraging Lessons of U.S. Iranian Relations

Authors
Michael A. McFaul
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Last month, the foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, and Germany triumphantly announced a new accord with Iran. Formally, the agreement obligates Iran to suspend temporarily all enrichment of uranium in return for some as-yet-unspecified economic benefits, including a steady supply of enriched uranium to fuel Iran's light water nuclear reactor. Informally, the Europeans believe their diplomatic negotiations have helped to suspend Iran's nuclear weapons program. Of course, no one can claim openly that the new deal hinders a nuclear weapons program, since Iran has never admitted to having one. Still, the Europeans proudly point to their accomplishment as proof that diplomacy works.
Last month, the foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, and Germany triumphantly announced a new accord with Iran. Formally, the agreement obligates Iran to suspend temporarily all enrichment of uranium in return for some as-yet-unspecified economic benefits, including a steady supply of enriched uranium to fuel Iran's light water nuclear reactor. Informally, the Europeans believe their diplomatic negotiations have helped to suspend Iran's nuclear weapons program. Of course, no one can claim openly that the new deal hinders a nuclear weapons program, since Iran has never admitted to having one. Still, the Europeans proudly point to their accomplishment as proof that diplomacy works.
All News button
1

U.S.-European Relations After the Iraq War

U.S.-European relations hit a dramatic and highly visible low point in the weeks leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. With the exception of the British government, which was, of course, supportive of the enterprise, many long-time U.S. allies – including, most prominently, France and Germany – were openly hostile to the American action. Relations have recovered, to a degree at least on an official level, but disagreements persist and resentments fester on both sides of the Atlantic four years after the onset of the war.

Is the damage that has been inflicted on the relationship irreparable in some sense? Or, as on so many other occasions since the establishment of the trans-Atlantic partnership at the mid-point of the last century, is the current unpleasantness likely to prove transitory? While the arrows point in both directions, the evidence continues to mount that the tensions so much in evidence between the two sides over the course of the last half-decade or so transcend disputes over particular issues. If this is true – which I believe it is – then our differences over Iraq are a reflection of something much deeper that is underway within the relationship, and not, in and of themselves, the cause – or even a cause – of the problem.

The real issue, it seems to me, is not whether relations between the United States and Europe can be repaired. Within limits, they can and will be. The more interesting – and important – question is whether the very nature of the relationship has changed (and is continuing to change) and if so, how, why, and with what implications for the future?

Download pdf

Renner Institut, Vienna

Coit D. Blacker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Coit D. Blacker Speaker
Heinz Gärtner Permanent Fellow Moderator Austrian Institute for International Affairs
Conferences

French Presidential Election Roundtable

-

Beyond selecting the new President, the second and final round of the 2007 French Presidential election will raise many questions about the meaning of the results for France, and for the EU and trans-Atlantic relations. This roundtable event is scheduled to follow soon after the election to give the benefit of review. Panelists from wide-ranging disciplines will each comment on what can be learned from the campaigns, the final voting patterns, and prospects for French and Francophone politics, culture, and society.

About the Panelists

Patrick Chamorel has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution since 2005. He is currently based at the Stanford Center in Washington, D.C., and will soon be the Center's Resident Scholar. He has written extensively on U.S. and European politics and U.S.-European relations. As a political scientist, Chamorel has taught and done research on comparative U.S. and European politics on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently focusing on French politics on the eve of the 2007 presidential election.

Margaret Cohen is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization, and director of the Center for the Study of the Novel at Stanford University. She is author of Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution and The Sentimental Education of the Novel. Her research interests involve rethinking the literature and culture of modernity from the vantage point of its waterways. She is currently working on a book concerning how the history and representation of global ocean travel informed the development of the modern novel.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is professor of French and political science at Stanford University and social and political philosophy at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. He is author of The Mechanization of the Mind: On Origins of Cognitive Science and Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality. His current research projects are: the paradoxes of rationality or the classical philosophical problem of the antinomies of Reason at the age of rational choice theory, analytics philosophy, and cognitive science; the ethics of nuclear deterrence and preemptive war; the philosophy of risk and uncertainty; and the philosophical underpinnings and the future of societal and ethical impacts of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science.

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi is professor of French and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She is also director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature and the Undergraduate Studies in French program. She is author of Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Culture, and the Challenge of Globalization and Remembering Africa. Her research interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean; literature, intellectuals, and society; and women writers.

Tyler Stovall is professor of history at University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light and The Rise of the Paris Red Belt. He is coeditor, with Sue Peabody, of The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. He has written numerous articles on French history and has been president of the Western Society for French History. His work on African Americans living in Paris is of special importance to contemporary understanding of both French and American culture.

Sponsored by Stanford University's Forum on Contemporary Europe, History Department, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Oksenberg Conference Room

Patrick Chamorel Visiting Fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Resident Scholar Speaker Stanford Center, Washington, D.C.
Margaret Cohen Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization and Director of the Center for the Study of the Novel Speaker Stanford University
Jean-Pierre Dupuy Professor of French and Political Science at Stanford University and Social and Political Philosophy Speaker Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi

111 Pigott Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-1947
0
Professor of Comparative Literature, Emerita
Professor of French and Italian, Emerita
Boyi.jpg PhD

Professor Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi is affiliated with both the French & Italian and Comparative Literature departments. Her teaching and research interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa and the Caribbean; literature, intellectuals and society; and women writers. Before coming to Stanford in 1995, Professor Boyi taught at universities in the Congo and Burundi, as well as Haverford College and Duke University. She was a Visiting Professor in the French Department of the Graduate Center, CUNY in 1994 and in 1995 a Professeur Invité at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 1999-2000 Professor Boyi was a Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. In 2002-2003 Professor Boyi was the president of the African Literature Association, a non-profit society of scholars dedicated to the advancement of African Literary Studies. She served as a member of the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association, where she represents the field of French (2003-2006), and as the Director of the interdisciplinary Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford (2005-2008).

Publications

Among Mudimbe-Boyi's publications are Jacques-Stephen Alexis: une écriture poétique, un engagement politique (1992); "Post-Colonial Women Writing in French (1993);"  Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Culture, and the Challenge of Globalization (2002); Remembering Africa (2002); Essais sur les cultures en contact: Afrique, Amériques, Europe (2006). Her latest book is Empire Lost: France and Its Other Worlds (2009).

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi Professor of French and Comparative Literature and Director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature and the Undergraduate Studies in French Program Speaker Stanford University
Tyler Stovall Professor of History Speaker University of California, Berkeley
Panel Discussions

Evaluating EU Democratic Rule of Law Promotion

Paragraphs

The modern Romanian judiciary originates in the middle of the nineteenth century. The structure of the judiciary follows both the French model (the civil matters), and the Italian one (the commercial regulations). The Ministry of Justice plays a significant role in the administration of the judiciary. Romanian is a Roman language, and Romania has had long-standing cultural ties to France that were carried over to the legal sphere.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
CDDRL
Authors

Criminal and Terrorist Threats, Evolutions and Ruptures: the French Perspective

-

Cosponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Consulate General of France in San Francisco.

Alain Bauer is a French criminologist, a freemason, and a constitutionalist lawyer.

He has been Chancellor of the International Masonic Institute since 2003. Mr. Bauer is also the Director of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations and the National Institute for Higher Studies in Security, Director of Institute Alfred Fournier, and Director of Versant SA. He was the former Vice-President of the University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne from 1982-1989 and a board member of the Chancellor's Office of the University of Paris. Mr. Bauer was also the former Secretary General of the World Trade Center in Paris-La-Défense and a former member of the International Legal Commission of the World Trade Center Association.

Building 260 (Pigott Hall)
Room 113 (1st floor auditorium)

Alain Bauer French constitutional lawyer, Knight of the Legion of Honor, Officer of the National Order of Merit, of the Palmes Academiques for service to education, and of Arts and Letters Speaker
Lectures

Old and New Laws on Historical Injustices and Genocide: Memory, History and the Law in Contemporary France

-

Roger Errera is a graduate of the Paris Institut d'etudes politiques, the Paris Law School and the ENA, Ecole nationale d'administration. Mr Errera is a former senior member of the Conseil d'Etat, France's Supreme Court for administrative law. He also sat on the Conseil superieur de la magistrature. After having taught extensively in France and abroad, he is presently a Visiting Professor at the Central European University in Budapest.

A former member of the UN Human Rights Committee, Mr. Errera has worked in Central and Eastern Europe as an expert and a consultant for the European Commission of the Council of Europe on legal and judicial issues.

Mr. Errera is the founder and editor of the "Diaspora" series, a collection of essays on Judaica and Jewish affairs published in Paris by Calmann-Levy (33 books published so far). He is the author of a number of articles and essays on judicial review, public law, free speech, freedom of religion, refugee law, judicial independence and accountability, nazism and communism.

Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Stanford Law School, the History Department, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Lane History Corner
450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 200-307
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

Roger Errera Former Member of the Conseil d'Etat, France's Supreme Court for Administrative Law Speaker
Lectures
Subscribe to France