Author: Chandler Rosenberger

Monday, October 4, 2021
5:30-6:30pm Eastern Time
Atrium of Mandel Humanities Center
In-person event, limited to Brandeis campus community
Refreshments will be served
No RSVP required

The federal election in Germany on September 26 has changed the country. After 16 years as Chancellor, Angela Merkel did not run again, and her party suffered a historic defeat at the polls. The Social Democrats (SPD) received the highest number of votes (25.7%), suggesting that their candidate Olaf Scholz (up to now Finance Minister in Angela Merkel’s governing coalition), will succeed her as Chancellor. However, to get there his SPD must form a new coalition – and the most likely partners are the Greens (who had their best ever results with 14.8% of the vote) and the “Market Liberal” Free Democrats (FDP) who also got a slight lift in the votes (11.5%). That will not be easy. We asked faculty and students with an interest in Germany/Europe to help us understand the results and what this will mean for Germany, for Europe, and for transatlantic relations going forward. Come join the discussion!!

Panelists:

• Lucy Goodhart, IGS and Politics
• Steven Wilson, Politics
• Lukas Ruser, Ph.D. student in NEJS/Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
• Sabine von Mering, Director, CGES

If the British voted to leave the European Union three years ago, why haven’t they left yet?  Why is “Brexit” so complicated?  Why can’t Britain come to an agreement with the EU that the British parliament will approve?

And what happens to the world’s largest market if the world’s fifth-largest economy crashes out of it?  Will “Brexit” be followed by a worldwide “Brecession?”

Come learn more at our lunchtime panel on Friday, March 29 at the Faculty Club.

March 26
2-4 p.m.
Skyline Commons

Monday March 18th 2019, 12pm-2pm
Faculty Club Lounge

Speaker Karsten D. Voigt is a former member of the German Bundestag and served as the Coordinator of German-North American Cooperation at the Foreign Office of Germany from 1999 to 2010. He also served as Vice-President (1992-1994) and then President (1994-1996) of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO.

From 1976 to 1998, he was a member of the German Bundestag, where he served as Foreign Policy Speaker of the Social Democratic faction from 1983 to 1998. For many years he was Chairman of the German-Soviet, and later the German-Russian parliamentary group.

Voigt is a board member of Aspen Germany and a Senior Associate fellow and member of the presidium of the German Council on Foreign Policy.

RSVP here.

IGS was very pleased to join the Heller School in cosponsoring a day-long conference on Africa’s development.  The economic growth in Nigeria, Rwanda, and throughout East Africa shows that this is probably more than just a commodity boom: we might be looking a real, long-term expansion.

Which leads to some interesting questions.  Why is growth now so much more robust?  And what can be done to make it sustainable — in both the sense of enduring and healthy? Does the African diaspora have a significant role to play?

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University gave an erudite talk today on a rather gruesome subject: the true nature of the North Korean regime that we so often mock but rarely take seriously.  I was especially moved by his account of the country’s 1990s famine, which could have been eradicated for $100 million, if only the North Korean regime had thought millions of lives were worth cutting a slice off its $7 billion military budget.

I was left reconsidering my own attitude towards the “Hermit Kingdom.”  Do we patronize North Korea when we laugh at its leader’s haircut?  If we reward the North Koreans — again — for pausing their nuclear tests, are we giving them the tools to continue oppressing their population?  Do we lose sight of the true nature of the North Korea problem if we get so caught up in negotiations that we overlook the sheer viciousness of the regime?

But no doubt you have your own responses to Professor Lee’s talk.  What did you hear that changed the way you think about the problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program?

Please feel free to make any comments, especially on the last lecture, here below.  And thanks for joining us for one the most successful Mandel lecture series we’ve enjoyed!