Stanford University

Understanding Massacre: Exploring the Genocidal Process (the Holocaust - Bosnia - Rwanda)

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How is it possible to make sense out of the socio-political process that sometimes leads to extreme violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide? This presentation shows that beyond the "singularity" debate, it is possible to compare cases while respecting their specificity.

Secondly, the presentation uses multidisciplinary approach, relying not only on contemporary history, but also on social psychology and political science.  

Based on the seminal distinction between massacre and genocide, this study identifies the main steps of a general process of destruction, both rational and irrational, made of a "delusional rationality". It describes a dynamic structural model with, at its core, the matrix of an imaginary construct which, according to its fears, resentments and utopias, shapes the social body, razing and eliminating “the enemy”. The presentation argues for a model with multiple variables, the act of massacre being determined both by local parameters and the international context, identifying the main stages that can lead to a genocidal process, without presupposing any historical fatality, and explaining how ordinary people can become perpetrators.

CISAC Conference Room

Jacques Semelin Research Director Speaker Centre d'études et de Recherches Internationales (CERI), and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
Seminars

"The Anschluss" in the Rear View Mirror: Austrian Historical Memories in Debate and Transformation, 1938-2008

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Oliver Rathkolb is the director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and the Public Sphere, and professor of contemporary history at the University of Vienna.

Professor Rathkolb is the co-founder of a scientific quarterly, "Medien und Zeit" (Media and Time), focusing on interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history and communications/media history, and is managing editor of "Zeitgeschichte" (Contemporary History). Since 1980, Professor Rathkolb has regularly presented papers at conferences and universities in the U.S. and Europe, including the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, American Political Science Association, German Studies Association, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He has published more than 100 articles on Austrian, European contemporary political, and cultural history, as well as international affairs and business history.

This presentation will analyze the most important changes in historical political terms that have taken place in the Austrian debate on the causes and consequences of the National Socialist takeover of power in 1938. At the same time, the results, which take into account recent research on communicative and cultural memory, will be enriched and widened in scope through a consideration of how the Anschluss is perceived by the international community of historians.

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Building 200, History Corner
Room 307

Oliver Rathkolb Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of European History and Public Spheres: Culture, Democracy and Media; Professor of the Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna (2005-2007) Speaker
Seminars
Austria in the Postwar World

Between Hitler, Benes and Tito: Czechoslovak-German and Yugoslav-German confrontations in World War II

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The lecture will address the German occupation policy in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, in Slovenia, and Serbia; including the occupation zones into the German war economy; with the mass murdering by the SS, Gestapo and Wehrmacht of resistance groups; with the problem of collaboration in the ruling class and in the population; with the destruction of the Jews in the Protectorate and in Serbia; with the problem of the figures of the victims; with the preparations of revenge and expulsion, and with the consequences of the total war in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Synopsis

Dividing his lecture clearly into twelve points, Prof. Suppan explains and analyzes the past century’s history of relations between German minorities, particularly in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the region’s natives. Originally a primarily peaceful coexistence, Prof. Suppan discusses the fact that rivalries started to develop between the two communities in as early as the 1880s. Prof. Suppan adds that World War I also did much to increase ethnic tensions. Moreover, he sees the persecutions that took place from 1914 to 1918 to have really poisoned the relationship between Serbs and Germans. After World War I, Prof. Suppan reveals that the new states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia further suffered in their relationship with Germany over issues such as border setbacks or minority rights. However, when the global economic crisis created mass unemployment, many turned to Hitler. Prof. Suppan argues this was significant to the annexation of both countries by Germany.

These annexations, as Prof. Suppan reveals, were not the result of consistent strategic planning but rather part of Hitler’s ideal of conquest. Prof. Suppan discusses the illegality of many Nazi occupation laws which led to calls for vengeance and retribution as the war neared its end. Prof. Suppan explains the result of the mass lawless displacement of Germans which turned into various settlement agreements. Even so, Prof. Suppan argues that the decrees and resolutions on the subject of the displacement of Germans should be seen as a political reaction to German occupation and led to a great death toll.

Prof. Suppan feels that overall the conflict was one of extreme bloodshed, citing the 40 million deaths that occurred from 1938 to 1948 throughout the entire region to reinforce his point. Moreover, Prof. Suppan engages in the debate on whether the conflict should be branded genocide or ethnocide. Prof. Suppan also argues that the former German settlements in Eastern Europe suffer to this day. He concludes by revealing that historical contradictions still exist between the various peoples. Prof. Suppan argues that to overcome this each side must have a deeper understanding of what they both suffered and perpetrated and must participate in the “spirit of European reconciliation.”

About the speaker

Arnold Suppan is professor of history at the University of Vienna and Chairman of the Historical Commission at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is currently a visiting professor wtih the Forum on Contemporary Europe at Stanford University.

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Paper

CISAC Conference Room

Arnold Suppan Professor of History Speaker the University of Vienna
Seminars
Austria in the Postwar World
Date Label

Memory Unbound: Human Rights and the Question of Cosmopolitan Memory

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There is a new cosmopolitanism in the air. The old concept has not simply been rediscovered but reinvented for the global age. Many writers now maintain that cosmopolitanism is no longer a dream, but rather the substance of social reality -- and that it is increasingly the nation state and our particular identities that are figments of our imagination, clung to by our memories. The purpose of this paper is to concretize this argument and demonstrate the distinctive forms that collective memories take in the age of globalization. It studies the transition from national to cosmopolitan memory cultures. Cosmopolitanism refers to a process of internal globalization through which global concerns become part of local experiences of an increasing number of people. Global media representations, among others, create new cosmopolitan memories, providing new epistemological vantage points and emerging moral-political interdependencies. As such, memories of the Holocaust contribute to the creation of a common European cultural memory based on the abstract notion of Human Rights.

 

Professor Sznaider earned dual B.A. degrees in Sociology and Psychology (1979) and an M.A. in Sociology (1983) from Tel-Aviv University, after which he completed both his M.Phil (Sociology/Philosophy, 1987) and Ph.D (Sociology, 1992) degrees at Columbia University in New York. Professor Sznaider has taught at Hebrew University, Columbia University, the University of Munich, and the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo.

Professor Sznaider has published a diverse array of books, essays, conference papers and monographs, and has edited widely in academic texts and journals in the fields of sociology, psychology, philosophy and human rights. He currently serves as Associate Professor, Head of the Undergraduate Division, and Head of the Teaching Committee at the School of Behavioral Sciences, Tel-Aviv University.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Natan Sznaider Associate Professor Speaker Academic College of Tel-Aviv
Seminars

German-Jewish Relations Today

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This seminar will focus on the Holocaust as the most important factor in shaping the relationship between all Germans and all Jews, as well as on some of the differences in Germany's relationship with Israel on the one hand and with American Jews on the other hand. Consul General Schütte will also address the situation of Jews in Germany today, based on personal observations and research during his posting at the German Embassy in Tel Aviv, as Deputy Head of Division for Middle East Affairs in the German Foreign Office, during a speaking tour in the U.S., and as a visiting scholar at the American Jewish Committee in New York.

About the Speaker
Mr. Rolf Schütte was born on June 9, 1953 in Goslar, Germany. He studied German and Russian Philology and Political Science at Göttingen University, Germany, at Ohio University, and at the Bologna Center of Johns Hopkins University in Italy. He joined the German Foreign Service in 1981 and served in different functions in the Foreign Office in Bonn and later Berlin (e.g. as Deputy Head of Division for Middle East Affairs and Head of Division for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova) as well as in the German Embassies in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Rome and in the German Mission to the United Nations in New York. Before becoming Consul General in San Francisco he spent a sabbatical year as a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, the American Jewish Committee in New York and the Institute of European Studies in Berkeley.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

Philippines Conference Room

Rolf Schütte Consul General Speaker the German Consulate General, San Francisco
Seminars

The Collapse of the Euro Area

Barry Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. He is also Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, England). In 1997-98 he was Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (class of 1997). He is the convener of the Bellagio Group of academics and economic officials. He has held Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto) and the Institute for Advanced Study (Berlin). He has authored and edited many books, including, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 (Oxford University Press, 1992), Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods (MIT Press, September 2006), and The European Economy Since 1945: Co-ordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton University Press, 2007). Dr. Eichengreen was awarded the Economic History Association's Jonathan R.T. Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002 and the University of California at Berkeley Social Science Division's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004. He is also the recipient of a doctor honoris causa from the American University in Paris.

Dr. Eichengreen received his Ph.D from Yale University in 1979.

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Barry Eichengreen Professor of Economics and Political Science Speaker University of California, Berkeley
Seminars

The Political Representation of the Poor: How Electoral Rules Affect Poverty Responsiveness

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Karen Long Jusko is an Assistant Professor (Subject to PhD) in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, with expertise in comparative democratic politics and quantitative methods for cross-national research. Karen's current research program investigates how electoral rules affect the political representation of the poor. This research has been supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Dissertation Fellowship, a SSHRC Federalism and Federations Dissertation Supplement, and research grants from the National Poverty Center, and the Luxembourg Income Study, and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University.

Dissertation Research

"The Political Representation of the Poor"

How do electoral rules affect the poor? How responsive are elected governments to the interests of low-income citizens? When do parties have an incentive to seek the support of the low-income citizens? These questions motivate a broadly comparative analysis of the relationship between antipoverty policy and electoral rules. Presenting a series of formal analytic examples, and using Luxembourg Income Study data in empirical analysis, this research demonstrates that electoral rules interact with the context in which elections are held -- specifically, the distribution of low-income citizens across electoral districts -- to create or limit legislators' incentives to be responsive to the poor. In this way, the very institutions of democratic government may undermine opportunities for a more equitable society. This dissertation project establishes the foundation of a research agenda motivated by broader questions about whether and how the institutions of contemporary democracies create incentives to build societies that reflect democratic ideals.

CISAC Conference Room

Karen Jusko Assistant Professor, Political Science Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

The Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

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Los Angeles Times National Correspondent Stephen Braun is co-author of "The Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible."

Braun will discuss the book he co-authored with Former West African Bureau Chief of the Washington Post Douglas Farah, which details how a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators worked doggedly to shut down Viktor Bout's arms pipelines, only to be trumped by Bout's ingenuity and by their own inability-and, in some cases, unwillingness-to confront the dark side of the new world order.

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Building 260, Room 113
Stanford University

Stephen Braun Author and LA Times correspondent Speaker
Seminars

Human Rights and Political Reform in Contemporary China: Views from a Swedish Diplomat and Scholar

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No country is changing as rapidly as China has done since the reform process started close to three decades ago. China - until then a country at the margin of the global economy - has become the third largest economy in the world and the world's second largest trading nation. In some respects, China is hardly recognizable. In other respects, it is very much so. The latter is particularly true of the political system which, even though much less "micro authoritarian" than it used to be, remains Leninist at its core.

At the recent party congress, the word "democracy" was used more than 60 times. Still, the aim is clearly to reform rather than dismantle the one-party state. Respect for human rights has been written into the constitution, but fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of association do not exist and the legal system is far from independent of the party. More and more people are, however, demanding their rights and "rights consciousness" is on the rise.

Where will these conflicting developments take China and how should the international community relate to China? There is a lot of talk about containing China but how could that be done and would it be desirable? In practice, most countries, like the US and the member countries of the European Union, Sweden included, try to engage China on a broad frontier, economically as well as when it comes to human rights, climate change and other issues of great concern for the future of us all.

Ambassador Börje Ljunggren, will address these issues on the basis of his own experiences as Swedish ambassador to China between 2002 and 2006 and as scholar.

Ambassador Börje Ljunggren has served as head of the Political Section of the Intelligence Department, Swedish National Defence (1968-70), Regional Economist for Asia at the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) (1970-73), secretary, Swedish Commission for the Review of Development Cooperation (1976-78), deputy director, Area Division, SIDA (1980-83; 1984-86), coordinator, Swedish Asia Strategy Project, Ministry for Foreign Affairs (1997-98), and deputy director general, head of the Department for Asia and the Pacific, Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999-2002). In addition, he has served as Swedish ambassador to Vietnam (1994-97) and as head of the Development Cooperation Office at the Swedish Embassy of Bangladesh (1973-75), Laos (1978-80), and Tanzania (1984). He has been a scholar in residence at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy (1994), a diplomat in residence at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University (1997), and a visiting scholar at the Harvard Institution for International Development (1990-91). Most recently, Dr. Ljunggren served as the Swedish ambassador to China (2002-06), before accepting his current post as ambassador with the Asia Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This seminar is jointly presented by Stanford University's Forum on Contemporary Europe, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and by the Dui Hua Foundation.

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Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Börje Ljunggren Ambassador, Asia Department, Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Speaker
Seminars
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