Damian Collins MP is a member of the House of Commons, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport. He graduated in modern history from the University of Oxford, and Charmed Life, the Phenomenal World of Philip Sassoon is his first book.

No RSVP required.  For more information, please contact jewishstudies.stanford.edu.

This event is co-sponsored by The Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Department of History, and The Europe Center.
 

Damian Collins MP is a member of the House of Commons, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport. He graduated in modern history from the University of Oxford, and Charmed Life, the phenomenal world of Philip Sassoon is his first book.

No RSVP required.  For more information, please contact jewishstudies.stanford.edu.

*This is an author event; the bookstore will be on-site selling copies of Collins' book.

This event is co-sponsored by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Department of History, and The Europe Center.

Celebrated international artist Ori Gersht will be delivering a lecture entitled "Optical Unconsciousness" with an introduction by Alexander Nemerov (Department Chair & Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities; Stanford University). A public Q & A will follow. For more information, please visit The Contemporary.

Free and open to the public. 

Gersht's visit is generously co-sponsored by Kim Allen and Alex Cohen, in honor of the marriage of Karen Underhill and Richard Meller; The Taube Center for Jewish Studies; The Department of Art and Art History; The Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages; The Europe Center; and The Contemporary.

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The Ambassador's remarks will address:

• U.S. military deployments
• Poland’s regional and global relations with the European Union, NATO and the United States 
•  Poland’s current domestic situation

Paul Jones was confirmed by the United States Senate as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Poland on August 5, 2015, and sworn in by Secretary Kerry on September 11, 2015.

Amb. Jones has a wide-ranging background in Europe. As Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2013-15, he was responsible for all aspects of U.S. policy and operations in Europe, particularly Russia and Ukraine. He was also Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (1996-99).

Ambassador Jones’ service in Asia and South Asia has complemented his European focus. As U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia, 2010-13, he led significant growth in the U.S.-Malaysian relationship, becoming the first U.S. Ambassador to be conferred the honorary title of Dato’. Ambassador Jones is a career member of the State Department’s Senior Foreign Service. His awards include the Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award for peace building, and several Superior Honor Awards.

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Disorder erupted in Ukraine in 2014, involving the overthrow of a sitting government, the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and a violent insurrection, supported by Moscow, in the east of the country.

This Adelphi book argues that the crisis has yielded a ruinous outcome, in which all the parties are worse off and international security has deteriorated. This negative-sum scenario resulted from years of zero-sum behaviour on the part of Russia and the West in post-Soviet Eurasia, which the authors rigorously analyse. The rivalry was manageable in the early period after the Cold War, only to become entrenched and bitter a decade later. The upshot has been systematic losses for Russia, the West and the countries caught in between. All the governments involved must recognise that long-standing policies aimed at achieving one-sided advantage have reached a dead end, Charap and Colton argue, and commit to finding mutually acceptable alternatives through patient negotiation.

Samuel Charap is Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in the Institute’s Washington, DC office. Prior to joining the Institute, Samuel served as Senior Advisor to the US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff.

This paper investigates the impact of human barriers on international trade using data on common ancestry. Using data on 172 countries covering the near universe of international trade, our analysis documents that country pairs with a large ancestral distance are less likely to trade with each other (extensive margin) and, if they do trade, they trade fewer goods (intensive margin). The results are robust to including a vast array of micro-geographic and political control variables. We explore the role of several proximate determinants that lead to this negative relationship, including differences in values, preferences, technology, as well as migration patterns. Our findings offer a partial explanation to the distance puzzle, the observation that estimates of geographic distance have remained persistently high despite substantial decreases in transportation costs in recent years.

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Lukas Schmid is an Assistant Professor at the University of Lucerne -- where he teaches empirical methods. His research interests include political economy, labor economics, and international economics. On-going projects explore the interaction between institutions and political and economic behavior, the impact of language and common ancestry on economic outcomes as well as the long-term consequences of education. His articles have been published in American Journal of Political Science, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, and elsewhere.

Drell Lecture Recording: https://youtu.be/K8qLqJwi4Qc

Drell Lecture Transcript: NA

Speaker's Biography: Admiral Inman graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1950, and from the National War College in 1972.  He became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987.  He was appointed as a tenured professor holding the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy in August 2001.  He served as Interim Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs from 1 January to 31 December 2005 and again from January 2009 to March 2010.

Admiral Inman served in the U.S. Navy from November 1951 to July 1982, when he retired with the permanent rank of Admiral.  While on active duty he served as Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.  After retirement from the Navy, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin, Texas for four years and Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Westmark Systems, Inc., a privately owned electronics industry holding company for three years.  Admiral Inman also served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 1987 through 1990.

Admiral Inman’s primary business activity since 1990 has been investing in start-up technology companies, where he is a Managing Director of Gefinor Ventures and of Limestone Capital Advisors.  He serves as a Trustee of the American Assembly and the California Institute of Technology.  He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

"Europe-Russia: a lasting confrontation"

European states expect the confrontation with Russia to last. And they are adjusting to a continued deterioration of relations with Moscow, short of armed conflict, as Moscow shows no sign of changing its position on Ukraine, Crimea, the status of the “in-between states” (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia…) and European security more broadly. The new US administration will most likely fail to improve the West-Russia relationship, and maybe worsen it further if they overplay their hand. New governments in the Netherlands, France and Germany in 2017 will face limited options to start anew a serious dialogue with Vladimir Putin. The Russian president does not appear to be much in demand of a repaired partnership.

Marie Mendras is an expert at the Kennan Institute,  and a Professor at Sciences Po - Paris School of International Affairs.

This event has reached full capacity. Please contact Magdalena Fitipaldi at magdafb@stanford.edu to get on the waiting list. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.