Michael Albertus, post-doctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law will present a paper that details the first analysis of a distributive program – a Venezuelan land reform initiative known as Misión Zamora – at the individual level using data on revealed voter preferences and the receipt of particularistic benefits. Using data from a list of millions of voters that signed petitions to recall President Chávez, Albertus will match information on all recent land grant applicants to petition signers to measure the effect of political preferences on the likelihood of applying for land, receiving land, and being effectively rejected. He will present evidence for both strategic core voter targeting and punishment of opposition voters, although both of these effects are modified by local political actors. The lack of a complete property registry and ambiguity in key provisions of the Land Law have enabled considerable administrative discretion in the application of the program.

Greek Nationalism had an early start in late 18th century because of the preponderance of the Greek language in Balkan institutions of learning. The early enlightenment was transmitted by learned prelates before the French Revolution launched its anti-clerical onslaught. Whereas 19th-century exponents of nationalism were children of the secular enlightenment, the second half of the century was dominated by the romantic and irredentist nationalism of Konstantine Paparrigopoulos that believed in the cultural, not racial, continuity of the Greeks. Turkish Nationalism was a late comer in the Balkans. The views of the Young Ottomans constituted at first ambiguous attempt before the Young Turks and Ziya Gökalp made their nationalist mark. Ataturk evicted religion from the Gökalp blueprint and kept the other two pillars, secular nationalism and modernization. Both Greek and Turkish 20th century nationalisms were influenced by the French post-1870 prototype.

Thanos Veremis is Professor Emeritus of Political History in Department of European and International Studies at the University of Athens and Founding Member of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). He has held teaching and research positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, Princeton University’s the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, St. Antony’s College (Oxford), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Hellenic Observatory of the LSE. From 2004 to 2010, he served as President of Greece’s National Council for Education. His publications include Modern Greece: A History since 1821 (with J. Koliopoulos, 2010); The Balkans: Construction and Deconstruction of States (2005), Greece: The Modern Sequel (with J. Koliopoulos, 2002), Greece (with M. Dragoumis, 1998) and The Military in Greek Politics (1997).

Mediterranean Studies Forum, 2011-12 Greece & Turkey Lecture Series. 
Co-sponsored by The Europe Center

An extraordinary group of scientists in the last century included the aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, the physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene P. Wigner, and Edward Teller, and the mathematician John von Neumann. These Jewish-Hungarians first left Hungary for Germany, then were forced out of Europe, and in the United States they became instrumental in the defense of the Free World during World War II and the Cold War. The lessons of their lives and oeuvres will be discussed with emphasis on the most controversial one, Edward Teller, known also as “the father of the Hydrogen Bomb.”

Speaker bio:

István Hargittai is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Academia Europaea (London). He is a Ph.D. of Eötvös University (Budapest), D.Sc. of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Dr.h.c. of Moscow State University, the University of North Carolina, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. His recent books include the six-volume Candid Science series (2000-2006), The Road to Stockholm (2002; 2003), Our Lives (2004), Martians of Science (2006; 2007), The DNA Doctor (2007), Judging Edward Teller (2010), and Drive and Curiosity (2011).

Edmund J. Malesky will argue that openness to foreign investment can have differential effects on corruption, even within the same country and under the same domestic institutions over time. Rather than interpreting bribes solely as a coercive “tax” imposed on business activities, he allows for the possibility that firms may themselves be complicit in using bribes to enter protected sectors or gain access to lucrative procurement contracts.  The propensity to bribe across sectors should vary with expected profitability related to investment restrictions. Thus, the linkage of foreign investment to corruption should increase dramatically as firms seek to enter restricted and uncompetitive sectors that offer higher rents. Malesky demonstrates this effect using a nationally representative survey of 10,000 foreign and domestic businesses in Vietnam. He also shows how the impact of domestic reforms and economic openness is affected by policies that restrict competition by limiting entry into a given sector.

Edmund Malesky is an associate professor of political science at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He has published in leading political science and economic journals, including the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Politics, and has been awarded the Harvard Academy Fellowship and Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in comparative politics. Malesky serves as the lead researcher for the Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index and Cambodian Business Environment Scorecard.

For more information please see the event web page.

Web tracking is pervasive: the average popular website incorporates over fifty third-party tracking mechanisms. And web tracking is unpopular: a majority of Americans oppose the practice. Do Not Track is a technology and policy response that would provide users with a simple, universal web tracking opt out. Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce have signaled support. This talk explores central questions in the ongoing web privacy debate:

* What information do third parties collect about users?
* What technologies do third parties use to track users?
* What limits does the online advertising industry's self-regulation impose?
* What should Do Not Track prohibit?
* Who should enforce it, and how?
* What would the economic impact be?
* Could it actually happen?

To learn more, visit http://donottrack.us and follow @donottrack.

Speaker Biography:

Jonathan Mayer is a computer science Ph.D. student and 3L at Stanford University. He graduated from Princeton University in 2009 with a concentration in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  Jonathan's area of study encompasses the intersections of policy, law, and computer science - with particular emphasis on national security and international relations. Jonathan works extensively with the Stanford Security Laboratory within the Computer Science Department and the Center for Internet and Society within the Stanford Law School.