----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Culcer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Dan Culcer Grup Societatea de maine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 5:25 PM Subject: [societatea_de_maine] �The Future of European Studies: Perspectives and Methods at the Millennium�
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~csallen/4640.htm http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/justiceproject/Video.htm http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/justiceproject/AboutJustice.htm#current%20program http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/ �The Future of European Studies: Perspectives and Methods at the Millennium� Conference at the University of California, Berkeley 23-24 April 1999 Debates over the place of area studies in university curricula are nothing new, but the end of the Cold War has brought renewed salience to these questions, which are at once epistemological, pedagogical, and political. Somewhat ironically, given the historical roots of area studies in Europe and the United States during the Cold War, Europe itself was the last region to be institutionalized under an area studies rubric. With the end of the Cold War, the place of area studies in explorations of European politics, culture, and society seems more ambiguous than ever, although scholars from across disciplines continue to feel that the area studies approach provides a depth and comprehensiveness of regional focus not offered by other, more traditional disciplines such as political science, sociology, history, and anthropology. The European origin of many theoretical perspectives used in these disciplines, moreover, provides added urgency to the reassessment of the place of European area studies within these larger disciplinary contexts. This conference, held at the University of California at Berkeley, brought together scholars from myriad disciplines to discuss the evolving but resilient place of area studies in the study of Europe and to address both long-standing and newer challenges to this approach. Beginning with a series of opening-day keynote addresses by George Ross (Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University), Mikl�s Hadas (Department of Sociology, E�tv�s Lor�nd University, Hungary), Uffe ?sterg�rd (Center for Cultural Research, Aarhus University, Denmark), and Michael Herzfeld (Department of Anthropology, Harvard University), the conference was structured around dialogue between these speakers and participants in three subsequent panel discussions. The first panel, entitled �Geographies,� assessed evolving notions of European geography and the influence of such conceptions upon our understanding of Europe. The second panel, �Disciplines,� assessed recent changes in disciplinary approaches to European area studies, in particular the need to reassess the hitherto central place of political economy, and the evolving role of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Europe. The final panel, entitled �Programs,� discussed the role of funding, intellectual independence from funders, strategic concerns about maintaining support for European area studies, and shifting intellectual and administrative boundaries within the organization of European studies within the contemporary university. Each panel was organized around initial presentations by panel members, followed by exchanges both within the panel and between panel members and members of the audience, many of whom were themselves members on other panels. This structure provided for fruitful intellectual exchanges as well as discussions among scholars from disparate intellectual and disciplinary approaches. Although the conference brought together scholars from a wide variety of scholarly perspectives, areas of expertise, and political points of view, all participants agreed that such conferences that they foster of European area studies, particularly in view of the relative insularity of particular disciplines from their colleagues in other areas of specialty. It was hoped that, with the continuation of such exchanges, European area studies can be not only preserved, but reinvigorated as Europe enters one of its most dynamic and volatile periods since the end of the Second World War. Friday, 23 April 1999 (Day 1) (Keynote addresses) In his opening remarks, David Leonard (Department of Political Science and Dean of International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley) introduced the four keynote speakers and framed many of the issues that would be discussed over the following 36 hours. Leonard pointed out that since Robert Bates introduced the debate between area studies and more theoretically grounded approaches to the study of Europe, the world has increasingly failed to conform to the expectations generated by scholars� traditional theoretical tools. The failure of economists� prescriptions for reform in post-Communist Eastern Europe, in particular, suggests both that economic and political theories may vary widely in their relevance to particular national circumstances; moreover, just as the end of the Cold War has reshaped European geography, it has also destabilized and called into question theoretical assumptions that had attained the status of orthodoxies prior to 1989. In view of this recent divergence between empirics and theory, Leonard argued, we need not so much to acquire a different body of theory as to develop new sets of questions with which to apply that theory to the study of the rapidly changing European landscape. In his introductory remarks, Randolph Starn (Director, Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley) noted that he was intrigued by the interdisciplinary nature of area studies and, like Leonard, suggested that European area studies (which was criticized as at once perhaps �too useful� for the Cold War and �useless� because preoccupied with merely �local knowledge�) has been under significant pressure to reorient itself. Starn also pointed out that the University of California at Berkeley, which supports an unusual number of area studies research units, is ideally suited to play a key role in this rethinking. Starn described the conference�s central question as �Whither European Studies?� and its inspiration as the bringing together of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and regional specialties within Europe. George Ross In his keynote address, Ross emphasized that his study of Europe was firmly rooted in his specialty of political science. He noted that, although it is a puzzling time to be discussing Europe, he could perceive three main foci around which contemporary discussions are centered: �space,� �governance,� and the evolving dynamics of European social contracts. The theme of �space� is predicated upon the central question of how to define Europe geographically. Ross pointed out that the concept of �West Europe� is an outdated notion, itself a product of the geopolitical cleavages of the Cold War. With the expansion of the European Union and the disappearance of the Iron Curtain, Ross suggested, �West Europe� has both grown and changed in its geographical denotation and socio-political connotation, from a core of allied democracies to a growing group of socially, culturally and politically diverse nation-states. This evolution is being driven by two distinct but related sets of phenomena. First, as nations have sacrificed large areas of policymaking sovereignty to the supranational institutions of the European Union, a genuinely federal economic union has emerged. Second, as the geopolitical challenges of Europe have changed dramatically, the security structures of the Cold War have proven themselves increasingly inadequate, a fact to which the current war in Kosovo attests. In other words, security issues have played an important role in re-entering European political debates, and, although NATO may continue to play a critical role in European security, European nations themselves will have to bear an increasing share of the burden of their own security. The �Europe to come,� therefore, will likely continue to be divided over security issues, even as a deepening consensus emerges over economic questions. Ross�s second thematic category, �governance,� centered on the evolution of the Westphalian system of nation-state sovereignty into a more diffuse, hybrid system of political order in which some political questions are still largely addressed within the nation-state, while others have been transferred to the supranational level of competence. While, after World War II, countries were largely self-contained economically, relying on such quasi-liberal structures as corporatism and statism, the period since the early 1980s has witnessed, on the one hand, liberalization and marketization, and, on the other, the increasing responsibility of �undemocratic� institutions on the EU level for fundamental questions of economic regulation. This set of events, in turn, has led to questions about the integrity of European democracy, as national governments have seemingly become increasingly unresponsive to their citizens� concerns. In short, Ross argued, European democracies have been caught in a kind of �Catch-22,� forced to address some of the most daunting economic challenges of the postwar era while deprived of many of their traditional tools of economic policymaking. Ross�s final category, the �social contract,� dealt with the new challenges faced by European welfare states and shifting notions of the state�s responsibility toward its citizens. The postwar bargains among labor, capital, and the state, Ross noted, were organized around basic class cleavages, but, as these cleavages have become less salient, and as slowing economic growth and increasing international competition have placed strains on national economies, �lites have been faced with the choice of either fundamentally reorienting the postwar bargains or abandoning the model of the welfare state altogether. Ross foresees three possible outcomes to this ongoing renegotiation: stasis or resistance to change, a pitched battle between labor and capital which the latter will ultimately win, or the abrupt, if painful, victory of neoliberalism. All of these possible futures, Ross noted, pose serious threats to social cohesion, as unemployment and economic stagnation have increasingly strained the Keynesian bargains that underlay the era of postwar economic growth. In conclusion, Ross noted that Europe is not alone in facing many of these challenges the structures of governance, and the renegotiation of national social contracts abandoned as scholars and policymakers try to chart Europe�s uncertain economic, social, and political future. Mikl�s Hadas Hadas addressed many of the same issues as Ross but from a different disciplinary and regional point of view. As a sociologist, Hadas focused upon contemporary changes in �life strategies� and �relational� connections among Europe�s citizens. As an East Europeanist, he perceives two central trends that European studies must continue to address within this context: on the one hand, changes in and the expansion of the European Union and pedagogical, and, on the other, intellectual shifts in the structures of European studies. In Hadas�s view the defining event of recent years has been the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of its Eastern European satellites. In the wake of this development, Eastern Europe has had to adapt to Western European political and social systems, with the result that Eastern Europe itself has been divided into two sets of countries: those that have successfully met this challenge, and others that have been excluded from the economic prosperity associated with late modern capitalism. Despite these new cleavages, however, citizens from across Europe, both East and West, are experiencing a change in their social organization. With the decline of traditional class cleavages, social interactions are increasingly characterized by the �relational reality of late modernity,� which denotes the expansion of the West European �life-space� into the East and the increasingly transnational and intercommunicative character of European society. This shrinking of distances, both literal and metaphorical, can be observed in several empirical contexts. First, as European �lites have become younger, and therefore less imprinted by the traumatic experiences of World War II, political and social agenda have become increasingly dynamic with the questioning of earlier social and political assumptions. Second, and somewhat counterintuitively, as the boundaries between East and West, as well as those between individual nation-states, have eroded, old historical ties such as the shared cultural heritage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire have re-emerged. Third, as what those in the West have traditionally thought of as the �semi-periphery� has re-entered the stream of European politics and society, new solidarities have emerged in Eastern Europe, but so too have new rivalries, as members of the former Eastern Bloc compete for economic aid from the West. More generally, in Hadas�s view a new �multi-positional embeddedness� has come to characterize the interactions of Europe�s regions, and in particular relations between East and West. People have become less differentiated by gender, as women enter the labor market, and by sexuality, which is becoming increasingly homogeneous. Moreover, �free-thinking ideologies,� which are more tolerant of disparate lifestyles, have become more salient. Hadas was quick to point out that these changes have not completely superceded traditional class and gender cleavages, which have proved surprisingly resilient and have begun to manifest themselves in the form of xenophobia, increasing violence against ethnic minorities, and the emergence of right-wing political movements. In social and economic terms, then, Eastern Europe is still 20-30 years behind the West. Relations between Eastern and Western Europe, then, for Hadas reflect change within continuity. These mixed legacies of the fall of the Iron Curtain, in his view, present an equally mixed picture of Europe�s future and increasingly complex challenges for those who study it. As Europe becomes at once more integrated and more heterogeneous, East European studies must evolve to keep pace with changes that the region itself is undergoing. Before 1989, Eastern European studies were organized under the aegis of �Cold War studies,� which de-emphasized such humanistic foci. Since that watershed, however, study of the region has turned to such previously neglected perspectives as cultural and literary studies and begun to consider the increasingly complex connections between East and West from diverse disciplinary perspectives. This challenge, however, is made more daunting by the ambiguous direction of Eastern Europe and its citizens. If some Eastern Europeans have become �poor but ambitious West Europeans,� others have become more �Eurasian,� excluded from the prosperity and stability that their Western neighbors have enjoyed. It is unsurprising, therefore, that these changes have affected the disciplinary structure of European studies, which have increasingly focused on the lucky and prosperous rather than the less fortunate. In Hadas�s view, we may be witnessing the emergence of a �New Holy Roman Empire� in the heart of Europe, which, unlike its predecessor, demands that one bring a flexible and interdisciplinary approach to its study. Hadas concluded his remarks by speculating that the study of Europe could profit from a focus on �border studies� investigation of places of contact among cultures, polities, and social systems. Uffe ?sterg�rd ?sterg�rd�s presentation focused on interpreting the shifting conceptual categories of the study of Europe from an historical perspective, as well as the effects of evolving notions of European geography on our understanding of the region. As a Dane, ?sterg�rd noted that Scandinavia itself has undergone a series of changes in both its geography and in people�s geographically based notions of the region. Like the rest of Europe, ?sterg�rd pointed out, the Nordic countries are heterogeneous, although the region as a whole defines itself as �peaceful, social democratic, and Lutheran.� These cultural constructs, moreover, have structured both scholars� views of the region and the self-understanding of its citizens. The Nordic countries, ?sterg�rd continued, are typical representatives of what he called �territorial� nation-states, a model which has developed historically in Northern Europe as well as France and Spain. In the 18th century, Northern Europe was dominated by two dominant states: first, the Danish monarchy, which, he pointed out, actually included the now-German areas of Schleswig and Holstein, as well as Norway and Iceland, and secondly, Sweden, which included contemporary Finland. The two competing European political models were also geographically delimited; the �federal� state, including 19th-century Germany and Italy, was structured around large measures of decentralized power among city-states, which came together in confederal polities, while the �composite,� or �supranational� model found its expression in the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. The �territorial� model, however, found its clearest expression in Northern Europe. In that region, the notion of Volk, or �people,� is a positive concept, connoting national solidarity and shared cultural heritages. ?sterg�rd pointed out, however, that the other two political models through the European Union, which has combined supranational institutions with federal divisions of power between Brussels and Europe�s nation-states. The lesson from history of the enduring influence of these three competing models, according to ?sterg�rd, is that �geography is not destiny�; rather, the political and social legacies left to Europe have been the products of both historical accident and human agency. Michael Herzfeld Michael Herzfeld, an anthropologist who focuses on Southern Europe, perceived two central challenges to members of his discipline. First, he, like many in his field, has had to resist classification as a �Medterraneanist,� and second, the blending of his disciplinary and regional foci has resulted in what he called �epistemological eugenics,� that is to say, a hierarchization of the knowledge within his field. In the context of the conference, Herzfeld noted that both anthropology and the study of Southern Europe have been marginalized within European studies. Accordingly, he argued for renewed attention to the development of analytical categories, such as the definition of regions and the conceptualization of their people, with a view to resisting marginalization and orientalism. Herzfeld deplored the fact that European studies tends to focus on Southern Europe only when it produces some perceived cultural or political threat to the values and stability of Western Europe, such as waves of unwelcome immigration or radical Islam. Due in large part to this intellectual orientation, he argued, scholarship on Southern Europe tends to �reproduce its object,� leading scholars to find that which they expect to see through their adherence to fixed, marginalizing intellectual constructs. Thus, Herzfeld argued, our focus should not merely be on saving European area studies, but also in reconstructing the field in such a way that the actual cultural and social practices of peoples be recognized, rather than fitting such analysis into fixed geographical or cultural categories, such as �Southern Europe.� European studies, Herzfeld noted, must be comparative in focus in order to create and sustain dialogue among social scientists who study the region from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Such an interdisciplinary approach, he added, is required in his own discipline so that it may better understand social and political movements such as nationalism and their effects upon the ways in which people actually live. In his own work on Greece and Italy, Herzfeld has brought such a comparative orientation to bear in comparisons of ancient historiography, the social structures of marginalized minorities, and the conservation of artifacts in ways that are unconstrained by hegemonic neo-classical ideologies. In this way, Herzfeld noted, he has been able to focus on the social integration of monuments rather than in the reconstruction of an �ideal past,� which often characterizes �lite projects aimed primarily at attracting tourism. Relating his own discipline and regional specialty to European area studies more generally, Herzfeld argued that the focus of all study of Europe should be to destabilize rather than entrench traditional epistemological and analytical categories. As a means to this end, scholars should focus on social and cultural particularities rather than ostensibly �typical� practices. Because such claims of �typicality� are �typically� constructed around official ideologies, scholars must renew their commitment to the study of �agency,� that is, the local and often disparate practices of individuals who, within given political and social structures, create and re-create societies and cultures. This plea for epistemological diversity, Herzfeld argued, is not tantamount to a call for ignoring the constraints of social and cultural structures; rather, it entails an approach that integrates factors of both structure and agency, synthesizing what sociologists and political scientists dismiss as �anecdote� into an approach that is at once analytically ambitious and epistemologically modest. Only in this way, Herzfeld argued, can scholars transcend the hold of sexual, cultural, and ethnic stereotypes, thereby studying cultural and social specificities as they �are made to be,� rather than as the �are.� Saturday, 24 April 1999 (Day 2) (Panel Discussions) Peter Sahlins (Department of History, University of California, Berkeley) introduced the conference�s second day, which was structured into three panel discussions on �Geographies,� �Disciplines,� and �Programs.� Sahlins�s opening remarks for the first panel, for which he served as mediator, noted the arbitrariness of geographical divisions within Europe, many of which have been called into question with the end of the Cold War. Such reconceptualizations are not new, he added, but enjoy a long historical lineage. From the Roman Empire to the Renaissance, Europe was divided largely along North-South lines, and it was only with the Enlightenment and the renewed influence of France that the currently dominant East-West division became prominent. After the late 18th century, the East-West cleavage produced a series of intellectual dichotomies, according to which the West was the center of civilization and freedom, while the East was characterized as barbaric and despotic. Although the end of the Cold War has begun to loosen this East-West division, such preconceptions endure while undergoing renegotiation. Sahlins noted that Mikl�s Hadas�s presentation from the previous day, which argued that �multifaceted embeddedness� has transformed relations between East and West, ran counter to that of George Ross, which posited that nation-state as the enduring, basic unit of political and social identity. Sahlins noted further that Uffe ?sterg�rd�s presentation explored the tension between the European �imaginary� and historical reality, while questioning if Michael Herzfeld�s presentation may have underestimated the resilience of cultural identities, the possibilities for the construction of which may be limited. Sahlins concluded by noting that immigration, ethnic conflict, and the growth of European institutions have all transformed Europe, but the nation-state is a political and geographical category with enduring resonance in the post-1989 era. The panel�s second presenter, Gail Kligman (Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles) also focused on the transformation of European geography but emphasized the impact of these changes on area studies itself. As �postmodernist fragmentation� has called into question traditional categories of European geography, Kligman argued, notions of �Eastern Europe� have changed even as �Central Europe� has reasserted itself as a cultural category. The end of the Cold War, however, has not resulted in all Eastern European countries� being treated alike by the West. Indeed, even as some post-communist states have integrated into the structures of the West, others, such as Romania and Bulgaria, have been left in an economic and cultural �no-man�s land.� Relating these changes to European studies, Kligman noted that, although traditional area studies have been criticized as atheoretical and non-methodological, the transformation of post-1989 Europe provides renewed relevance for the interdisciplinary and analytically flexible study of Europe as a region. Because regional and country studies have become more essential in the current period of dynamic change, Kligman argued that European specialists must take note of shifting sources of and opportunities for funding. Consistently with her call for increasing the interdisciplinarity of European studies, Kligman concluded by calling for renewed attention to humanities and literature, which, though neglected, can provide important insights into national cultural and social specificities, even as European studies tries to reorient itself to the transformed geographical landscape of the continent as a whole. The presentation of the third member of the panel, John Connelly (Department of History, University of California, Berkeley) centered on how concepts of geography shape and reshape ideas of Europe. In this ongoing transformation of intellectual constructs, Connelly argued, history and geography themselves are less at stake than is politics, as the emergence of �Central Europe� as an important concept has included some countries from Western Europe�s political, and therefore social, orbit even as it has excluded others. Further developing this idea, Connelly noted that Czech author Milan Kundera has written on the exclusion of the Czech Republic from �Central Europe� in the minds of the West, due in large part to the enduring influence of Russian culture there; he found an excellent example of such exclusion in Timothy Garton-Ash�s notion of an enduring �cultural divide� between Eastern and Western Europe, ostensibly located at the Slovak-Ukrainian border. Connelly laid out three objections to current scholarly treatments of Eastern Europe. First, he argued, many analysts absolutize categories like �Central Europe,� a practice which removes many cultural, social, and political ambiguities and complexities from the realm of debate. Second, Germany, which lies in the geographical heart of Europe, is often excluded from �Central Europe,� a fact which reflects Germany�s economic and political more than its geographical centrality. However, Connelly also argued that the former East-West boundary continues to retain some usefulness, and scholars must continue to note the legacies of communist rule in Eastern Europe even as they resist absolutizing the category itself. In conclusion, Connelly argued that scholars need to ask new questions, in particular how to move beyond �Europe� as a category and how to use European area studies to continue to question traditional geographical constructs. In the general discussion that followed, the previous day�s speakers responded to the panelists� presentations. George Ross noted that what may be lost in renewed focus on the past and future is the present, in which dramatic changes are occurring in Europe�s political and social infrastructure. Ross further pointed out that the place of European in the international economy is critically important, and, in response to Mikl�s Hadas�s discussion of the decreasing importance of the nation-state, Ross argued that the nation-state remains the most important political and social category. Gail Kligman noted, contrary to Ross�s assertion, that the panelists had not ignored the present, but rather tried to put that present in historical perspective, for example in studying NATO�s changing relationship with Eastern Europe. Mikl�s Hadas, in response to Ross, noted that he had not argued that the nation-state had disappeared, but rather that we need to understand the nation-state�s present in terms of transnational lines of social and political development. Uffe ?sterg�rd responded by noting his agreement with both Ross and Hadas, whose views, he asserted, may not be as disparate as they appear at first glance. For his part, ?sterg�rd argued that the Baltic states have become increasingly important as among the most economically and politically successful parts of the former Soviet Union, and as such, can be counted on to integrate earliest and most successfully into the West. Michael Herzfeld noted the need for balance between the reification of geographical categories and total relativism, the need to take stereotypes seriously as reflective of evolving responses to changing politics, and the imperative of understanding �lite constructions of national symbols as an important focus of ethnographic approaches to Europe. The final discussion of the panel explored further Herzfeld�s notion of �agency� and the potential contributions of a geographer to the panel. Saturday�s second panel, entitled �Disciplines� and chaired by Jan de Vries (Departments of History and Economics, University of California, Berkeley) centered on the relationship between transformations in European area studies and new challenges that derive from the transfiguration of the continent. Renate Holub (Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies and International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley) opened with a discussion of recent debates over the future of the nation-state. While some scholars have argued that the nation-state is disappearing altogether, others have asserted that the category retains importance even as the relationships between state and citizen have been transformed by shifting political cleavages and �globalization.� Holub called for the reconfiguration of European area studies into what she called �New European Studies,� the focus of which should be cultures at the European periphery. A central part of this project, Holub argued, should be decreased focus on �hegemonic� national literatures with a view to �accommodating diversity� by stressing the religious and cultural practices of Europe�s marginalized peoples. In short, the focus of New European Studies should be multicultural rather than national. John Gillis (Department of History, Rutgers University) responded by arguing that, while he agreed with the view of many panelists that the model of �European Studies� risks reification, many of the discussants� presentation lacked a certain historical depth. While the international economic integration widely referred to as �globalization� has existed for a very long time, for example, European studies tends to focus disproportionately on the modern. The recent emergence of �global history,� which is being developed by younger faculty at less prestigious universities, provides a needed corrective to this tradition. �Global history,� Gillis continued, continues to be underfunded and underrecognized, but this liability can also serve as an asset, since it allows the emerging discipline to escape the �golden straitjacket� of entrenched intellectual and financial hierarchies present in America�s more prestigious universities. Gillis argued that scholars need to reconceptualize European studies �from the outside in,� focusing at once on the local and the global, particularly in view of five recent trends. First, political economy, which has traditionally lain at the heart of European studies, is becoming increasingly global. Second, population movements are transforming European demography and social structures. Third, ecology and environmental pressures are becoming increasingly pressing. Fourth, political and cultural identities are undergoing rapid transformation. Finally, while particular cultures are changing, the very notion of �culture� has undergone a series of destabilizing challenges in recent years. Because of the multiple benefits to engaging these agenda, Gillis concluded, scholars of Europe need to integrate the study of Europe into a truly global historical perspective by �researching locally and thinking globally.� J. Nicholas Ziegler (Department of Political Science and Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley) centered his talk on three broad points: debates about the significance of the end of the Cold War, discussions of changing models of governance, and the implications of both of these developments for the conceptual boundaries of political science. Citing Ruggie�s notion of �embedded liberalism� (the combination of various departures from liberalism in the arena of domestic politics within a more liberal r�gime of international trade) as a useful category with which to study evolving linkages between international and domestic politics, Ziegler noted that one of the key challenges for the discipline of political science is the changing nature of power, which has shifted intellectual boundaries within the discipline. Ziegler further pointed out that postwar settlements among states, workers, and business in Europe emerged along two disparate models Soviet Bloc centered on the command economy. This notion of �embedded liberalism,� Ziegler argued, is useful in understanding how the structures of governance created by postwar bargains are once again in flux. While national welfare states are being renegotiated, �lites are using economic experimentation in order to meet the challenges of economic efficiency and firm competitiveness. These shared challenges, however, are not leading to identical responses among Europe�s national governments. Even as the notion of �shareholder value� has become ascendant in some countries, others have modeled their transformations around the notion of �stakeholder societies,� in which firms enjoy the institutional predicates of long-term investment. In view of the ambiguous legacy of postwar liberalism, Ziegler argued, political scientists should both avoid the false dichotomy between �market� and �hierarchy� and continue to learn from other disciplines. The panel�s final presentation, by Jan de Vries, was organized around the contrast between the disciplinary scholar�s responsibility to locate his study within the tradition of his discipline, the area scholar�s lack of such a responsibility, and the latter�s resulting ability to issue challenges to disciplinary boundaries. What area studies perhaps lacked in rigor, it thus has made up for in flexibility. The danger of the area studies approach, however, lies in its tendency to essentialize the areas under study. In view of recent social, political, and cultural challenges, de Vries argued, the disciplinary approach on its own has become inadequate, providing an opportunity for European studies to reassert its relevance. Although European area studies was created as a sort of �escape route� from the strictures of the disciplines, he argued, it has not yet offered enough to its students. In arguing for the continued relevance of the disciplines themselves, de Vries suggested the challenge for European studies is to respond to the perceived inadequacies of the disciplinary approach while recognizing the limitations of grounded studies of particular places. The general discussion following the panel took up the themes of the interaction and possible antagonism among the disciplines and what George Ross referred to as �methodological individualism.� Participants such as Michael Herzfeld and John Borneman (Department of Anthropology, Cornell University) pointed out that, while the disciplines remain helpful foci of interest, they enshrine power relationships that may elevate some perspectives even as they marginalize others. Other participants discussed the apparent conflict between the notion of universal rationality and cultural specificity, and although certain members seemed to favor one or the other model, all seemed to agree that constructive study of Europe must draw from each without reifying either. The final panel of the conference, entitled �Programs,� addressed the strengths and weaknesses of existing area studies curricula as well as institutional arrangements for funding, the pressures that such arrangements are experiencing, and strategies for meeting these challenges. Sorin Antohi (Pro-Rector, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary) opened the panel with a discussion of the curricular arrangements at C.E.U. and how his institution is attempting to address both shifting notions of �Central Europe� and the disproportionately vocational emphasis of European studies there. In his view, existing emphases on International Relations Theory and Diplomacy need to be reconceptualized to take account of what he called the �renegotiation of Europe�s symbolic geography.� In this ongoing rethinking of European studies, Antohi noted, the temptation is to move from a vocational emphasis to a �catch-all� approach, which attempts to include a variety of previously ignored areas of focus such as Southern Europe and the Balkans. Although such a rethinking is essential, Antohi argued, we must resist the temptation to take an orientalist approach to Central and Eastern Europe, positing those regions as �different� from Western Europe. The inclusion of such foci as gender and cultural studies, themselves taken from American models, is to be commended, but the challenge is to arrive at a consensual definition of �Europe,� with which such approaches can be integrated into the study of the continent as a whole rather than merely of the particularities of specific subregions. Antohi concluded by noting that the ongoing conflict in Yugoslavia has encouraged the definition of �Europe� in terms of its ostensible �values,� an attempt which is both elusive and dangerous, inasmuch as it sets the Balkans apart from Europe rather than attempting to integrate them into existing structures of European area studies. John Borneman discussed his experience with and involvement in various research units at Cornell, arguing that a key problem in contemporary area studies is the tension between �disciplines� and �programs.� In Borneman�s view, European studies suffers from research programs� borrowing from existing disciplines without establishing budgetary and curricular autonomy from them. In his view, there are four central problems with European studies as currently constituted. First, the increased volatility and movement of faculty among departments and institutions has taken a toll on the continuity of existing programs. Second, the split between humanities and social science has led to the �pauperization� of humanistic approaches to Europe and disproportionate support for ostensibly �hard scientific� approaches to the region. In a related trend, humanistic approaches have defensively begun to focus on such �placeless� topics as �identity politics,� which has shifted the focus away from Europe and toward the Third World and the United States, from which such approaches derive. Third, ongoing attacks on �Eurocentrism� has not reduced interest in Europe but rather has led to a shift towards studying Europe as a whole rather than through the lenses of particular disciplines or subregions. Finally, and most disturbingly, Borneman noted, ongoing debates about �globalization� have led to a basic questioning of European area studies itself. Christopher Makins (German Marshall Fund) brought a somewhat different focus to the panel, discussing organizational shifts in area studies funding structures and their effects upon research that scholars undertake. In Makins�s view, we need to step back from the strategic concerns of securing funding and recognize that knowledge of particular geographical areas is important, even as we note that the types of knowledge that are relevant to the study of the region are more varied than acknowledged heretofore. The most urgent challenge, Makins argued, is to devise institutions that can deal with the increasing scope of existing information, and he asserted that the study of Europe today requires a certain �epistemological openness� to match ongoing changes in Europe itself. In conclusion, Makins claimed that while knowledge would and should be pursued for its own sake, the academy must recognize its broader responsibility to society, in both its teaching and in its research, to help address social, political and economic problems. An increasing gulf between the disciplines in academe and other sectors of society, he noted, had encouraged the rise of think-tanks which were now often fulfilling roles once performed by academics. In the interests of both sides, we needed to try to encourage institutions that could bridge this gap. Finally, Makins noted that outside funders had long since ceased to be the primary sources of support for area studies and although such funders still provided invaluable discretionary funds, the case for strong area studies needed to be made first and foremost to the universities themselves. Makins called for academics to make more convincing, more empirical cases for area studies programs that reflected the changed realities in Europe that the conference had discussed and that could help bridge the gap among the university, business, and political �lites. Richard Buxbaum (Ralston Professor of International Law, Boalt School of Law, University of California, Berkeley) concluded the panel with two short comments. First, he noted that the importance of European area studies centers lies in their provision, not so much of �new knowledge,� as of a forum within which universities can provide support and mentorship to doctoral students across departmental boundaries. Second, he noted that, while many faculty positions are formulated in area studies terms largely because of funding constraints, this is not the case in European studies, which enjoy broad institutional and financial support from their home institutions. As a result, however, European studies runs the risk of shifting to policy-driven research. The panel�s concluding discussion returned to the questions of �relevance� and challenges to funding raised by many of the participants. Michael Herzfeld admitted being disturbed by the discussion of �relevance,� which he saw as implying the need for homogeneous, �lite-driven study, a trend which, in his view, universities should resist rather than encourage. The danger, Herzfeld argued, is that universities will cede the intellectual ground to business schools, which may usurp the university�s critical function. J. Nicholas Ziegler responded by arguing that the existing functions of the university are relevant to professional education, and that universities can resist the trend towards �policy-driven� research through supporting dissertations, which remain the most reliable sources of new knowledge. John Zysman (Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley) agreed, arguing that perhaps the �real/academic� dichotomy is unhelpful. In Zysman�s view, dramatic events in the world tend to be interesting from a researcher�s as well as from the policymaker�s point of view. He noted further that many faculty and graduate student grant proposals tend to be extremely superficial, but that, as academics, we need to try to convince funders that our questions are relevant to policy concerns. John Borneman and Mikl�s Hadas concluded the discussion by noting that existing funding and research frameworks reflect existing structures of power, within which academics must work in order to sustain their relevance to policy discussions. In his concluding comments to the two-day conference, Randolph Starn noted that the gathering had produced two new perspectives or issues that merit further thought. First, the divisions between academe and the professional world are beginning to be bridged, a trend to which conferences like this one are ideally suited contributors. Second, such conferences as this contribute to the self-reflexivity of European area studies and should be promoted as an essential constituent of the ongoing dialogue both within European studies and between it and the larger university. Leaving participants with the open question of how best to organize and pursue this dialogue, Starn ended the conference. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/RR.olB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> EuroAtlantic Club: http://www.europe.org.ro/euroatlantic_club/ *** Birou de traduceri autorizate. Oana Gheorghiu - tel/fax: 252.8681 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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