Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's pugnacious president, is now the country's longest-serving leader. On his way to the top, he has fought many wars. This book tells the story of those battles against domestic enemies through the lens of the Syrian conflict, which has become part and parcel of Erdoğan's fight to remain in power.

Turkey expert Gönül Tol traces Erdoğan's ideological evolution from a conservative democrat to an Islamist and a Turkish nationalist, and explores how this progression has come to shape his Syria policy, changing the course of the war. She paints a vivid picture of the president's constantly shifting strategy to consolidate his rule, showing that these shifts have transformed Turkey's role in post-uprising Syria from an advocate of democracy, to a power fanning the flames of civil war, to an occupier.

From the first days of Erdoğan's rule through the failed coup against him, via the Kurdish peace process, the Arab uprisings and the refugee crisis, this compelling, authoritative book tells the story of one man's quest to remain in power--tying together the fates of two countries, and changing them both forever.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the Middle Eastern Studies Forum, and CDDRL's Program on Turkey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gönül Tol is the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program and a senior fellow with the Black Sea Program. She is the author of Erdogan's War: A Strongman's Struggle at Home and in Syria. She has taught courses at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies and at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University on Turkey, Islamist movements in Western Europe, world politics, and the Middle East.She has written extensively on Turkey-U.S. relations, Turkish domestic politics, and foreign policy and the Kurdish issue. She is a frequent media commentator.

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This talk examines the concept of aesthetic perfection against the backdrop of today’s digital mediascape, where the latest screen technologies promise sharp, pristine images with lossless compression and a lifelike appearance. While, in Hito Steyerl’s account, the circulation of “poor” or “imperfect” images can disrupt hegemonic media logics, I demonstrate that the very ideal of perfection is an engine of semantic instability in the modern age. Intervening in contemporary debates about “rich” and “poor” images, and “high” and “low” definition, my lecture offers a differentiated and historically dynamic understanding of perfection as a limit concept in global film and media theory. I argue that moving images played a crucial role in the redefinition of perfection, as classical conceptions of the term gradually and unevenly gave way to perfectionism, perfectibility, and an aesthetics of imperfection. Integrating Reinhart Koselleck’s method of conceptual history into the study of moving images, my talk reconceives the history of global film and media theory as one of semantic persistence, change, and radical novelty of meaning.

Nicholas Baer is Assistant Professor of German at the University of California, Berkeley, with affiliations in Film & Media, Critical Theory, and Jewish Studies. He is author of Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism (University of California Press, 2024) and co-editor of three volumes: The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933 (University of California Press, 2016), Unwatchable (Rutgers University Press, 2019), and Technics: Media in the Digital Age (Amsterdam University Press, 2024).

This event is hosted by the Stanford Humanities Center and co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Join the Cyber Policy Center on May 7th from Noon–1PM Pacific with speaker Olivier Blazy, of Ecole Polytechnique, for Online Age Verification and Privacy Protection: An Impossible Equation? The session will be moderated by Florence G'sell of the Program on Governance of Emerging Technologies at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June hosted at the Cyber Policy Center. Sessions are in-person and virtual, via Zoom and streamed via YouTube, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance and registration is required. Sessions will take place in Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 123, 615 Crothers Way on Stanford Campus.

The internet, often described as a vast and unruly wilderness, presents a universal challenge: maintaining safety and order. A key concern is the protection of children online, specifically through restricting their access to sensitive content. Various methods of online age verification have been attempted, ranging from highly intrusive techniques to those that are less effective.

In this presentation, Blazy will delve into the common pitfalls associated with traditional age verification methods both in term of safety, and security, and will then introduce a new framework developed in collaboration with the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) and PEReN. This framework utilizes readily available technologies and offers a practical implementation approach. Finally Blazy will discuss how this proof of concept not only addresses specific challenges but also aligns with current legislative measures, and expectations while contributing to a safer and more privacy-friendly digital environment. 

About the Speaker

Professor at Ecole Polytechnique, and leader of their newest Cybersecurity program, Olivier Blazy has worked in the field of cryptography for 15 years from a PhD on zero-knowledge and implicits proofs of knowledge to post quantum cryptosystems and study of real-work schemes for secure end-to-end communications. He was involved in several major projects on identity-based cryptography, and post-quantum cryptography, which lead to several submission to the NIST standardization process, including 2 (of the 3) alternative finalists. Recently, he worked with the french Data Protection Authority (CNIL) on an age verification proof of concept to serve as a baseline for guidance of new french (and hopefully european) legislation. Before joining Ecole Polytechnique as a Professor, Olivier was an assistant professor in University of Limoges, and did a post doctorate in Germany.Throughout his career, he worked with several companies and government entities to bridge the gap between cutting-edge academic cryptography and practical deployment to help solve complex challenges in securing digital communications.

Join the Cyber Policy Center on April 30th from Noon–1PM Pacific for Screen Struggles and Screen Delight: Is Social Media Sabotaging or Saving Adolescent Mental Health? with speaker Patti Valkenburg, Distinguished Professor of Communication at the University of Amsterdam and founder and director of Center for research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media. The seminar will be moderated by Jeff Hancock, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June hosted at the Cyber Policy Center. Sessions are in-person and virtual, via Zoom and streamed via YouTube, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance and registration is required. Sessions will take place in Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 123, 615 Crothers Way on Stanford Campus.

Social media can be a source of joy and happiness for some adolescents but a trigger for sadness and depression in others. Why is that? In 2018, Patti Valkenburg and her team launched Project AWeSome—Adolescents, Well-being & Social Media—to explore the complex relationship between social media use and mental health. Pioneering a person-specific (or N=1) media effects approach, they combined qualitative in-depth interviews with large-scale longitudinal data analysis to understand how social media's impact on well-being differs from adolescent to adolescent. Both their qualitative and quantitative findings challenge common hypotheses about the impact of social media on well-being. In this seminar, Valkenburg will delve into these findings, discussing whose mental health is most likely affected by social media use and why. Her presentation will conclude by outlining future research directions that will further our understanding of social media’s role in adolescent lives.

About the Speaker:

A University Distinguished Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Patti Valkenburg’s research focuses on the impact of (social) media on youth and adults. She is particularly interested in theorizing, studying, and demonstrating how individuals differ in their susceptibility to the effects of (social) media. Her Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model, published in the Journal of Communication, has served as a theoretical basis for numerous academic publications, and it is taught in communication classes globally. An informative video clip from the University of Amsterdam explains her model and serves as a resource for undergraduate courses.

Valkenburg’s scholarly contributions have been recognized with multiple grants and awards. Notably, she was the first social scientist to receive the Dutch Spinoza Award, the most esteemed academic accolade in the Netherlands, accompanied by a grant of 2.5 million euros free to spend on research. Her recognitions also include an Advanced Investigator Grant from the European Research Council and the Steven Chaffee Career Achievement Award from the International Communication Association (ICA). She has been honored with fellowships from the ICA, Association for Psychological Science, and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her commitment to accessible knowledge is evident in her open-access book, Plugged In, published by Yale University Press and translated into various languages.

Another turn to the right or more of the same?

Voters in the twenty-seven member states of the European Union head to the polls in early June to elect a new European Parliament for the next five years. Can we expect another victory for the populist right, as we have witnessed in so many recent elections throughout the world? In this talk we discuss the balance of power and policy achievements of the outgoing Parliament, and look ahead at the results we can expect in June. We further consider the implications of the widely expected sharp turn to the right for the functioning of the Parliament and EU policy making. 

Christophe Crombez is a political economist who specializes in European Union (EU) politics and business-government relations in Europe. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government. 

Crombez is Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (since 1999). He is also Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium (since 1994). Crombez obtained a B.A. in Applied Economics, Finance, from KU Leuven, and a Ph.D. in Business, Political Economics, from Stanford University.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by May 2, 2024.

Join the Cyber Policy Center on April 16th from Noon–1PM Pacific with Carly Miller of the Oversight Board. The session will be moderated by Jeff Hancock, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June hosted at the Cyber Policy Center. Sessions are in-person and virtual, via Zoom and streamed via YouTube, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance and registration is required. Sessions will take place in Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 123, 615 Crothers Way on Stanford Campus.

As social media regulation comes into force, regulators are requiring platforms to share an unprecedented amount of data for proof of compliance. However, determining the correct data to measure impact is challenging. For the past two years, the Data and Implementation Team at the Oversight Board, an independent body created by Meta to tackle difficult content moderation challenges, has been working to create a data-driven framework to hold the company accountable and ensure that users feel the impact of its recommendations. In this presentation, Data and Implementation Officer Carly Miller will discuss the lessons learned from taking policy oversight from theory to practice. Through a series of case studies, this presentation explores the challenges of tracking moderation impacts on small communities, improved automated detection efforts, and changes to user behavior.   
 

About the Speaker

Carly Miller is Data and Implementation Officer for the Meta Oversight Board. Previously she was a research analyst at the Stanford Internet Observatory. At Berkeley Law she was Team Lead at the Human Rights Investigations Lab School where she worked to unearth patterns of various bad actors’ media campaigns. Carly received her BA with honors in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Join the Cyber Policy Center on April 2nd from Noon–1PM Pacific with speaker Marietje Schaake for The Quest for Global AI Governance: the UN AI Advisory Body. Schaake will speak about developments in AI governance around the world. As a Member and co-rapporteur of the UN AI Advisory Body, she will share highlights on the progress this body has made since last Fall, as well as the findings as shared in the Interim Report ‘Governing AI for Humanity’. The session will be moderated by Nate Persily, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and is part of the Spring Seminar Series, a series spanning April through June hosted at the Cyber Policy Center. Sessions are in-person and virtual, via Zoom and streamed via YouTube, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance and registration is required. Sessions will take place in Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 123, 615 Crothers Way on Stanford Campus.

About the Speaker

Marietje Schaake is international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Between 2009 and 2019, she served as a Member of European Parliament for the Dutch liberal democratic party where she focused on trade, foreign affairs, and technology policies. She writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and serves on the UN’s AI Advisory Body.

Marietje is an (Advisory) Board Member with a number of non-profits including MERICS, ECFR, ORF and AccessNow.