Over the past decade, illiberal demagogues around the world have launched ferocious assaults on democracy. Embracing high-dominance political styles and a forceful argot of national greatness, they hammer at their supposed superiority as commanders, protectors, and patriots. Bewildered left-liberals have often played to the type their tormentors assign them. Fretting over their own purported neglect of the folks’ kitchen-table concerns, they leave the guts and glory to opponents who grasp that elections are emotions-driven dominance competitions.

Consequently, in America, democracy’s survival now hangs on the illiberal party making colossal blunders on the eve of elections. But in the wake of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, a new cohort of liberals is emerging in Central and Eastern Europe. From Greens to right-center conservatives, they grasp the centrality of messaging, nationalism, chutzpah, and strength. They’re showing how to dominate rather than accommodate evil. What can American liberals learn from their tactics and ways?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Image

Steve Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Democracy from Scratch, Democracy Derailed in Russia, and Are Muslims Distinctive? and coauthor of The Handbook of National Legislatures. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Comeback: Crushing Trump, Burying Putin, and Restoring Democracy’s Ascendance around the World.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

Image

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Encina Hall may attend in person.

Image

The medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Existing accounts focus on early modern warfare or contracts between the rulers and the ruled. Yet the Catholic church both competed with medieval monarchs and provided critical templates for governing institutions, the rule of law, and parliaments. The Catholic Church was the most powerful, wealthiest, and best-organized political actor in the Middle Ages. Starting in the 11th century, the papacy fought for the autonomy of the church, challenging European rulers and then claiming authority over people, territory, and monarchs alike. Conflicts with the papacy fragmented territorial authority in Europe for centuries to come, propagating urban autonomy and ideas of sovereignty. Thanks to its organizational advantages and human capital, the church also developed the institutional precedents adopted by rulers across Europe—from chanceries and taxation to courts and councils. Church innovations made possible both the rule of law and parliamentary representation.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Image

Anna Grzymala-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

This seminar is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

In The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Ukrainian journalist and writer Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner from 2015 to 2017 in a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation (FSB) in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This memoir recounts an endless ordeal of psychological and physical abuse, including torture and rape, inflicted upon the author and his fellow inmates over the course of nearly three years of illegal incarceration spent largely in the prison called Izoliatsiia (Isolation).

Since February 2022, numerous cases of illegal detainment and extreme mistreatment have been reported in the Ukrainian towns and villages occupied by Russian forces during the full-scale invasion. These and other war crimes committed by Russian troops speak to the genocidal nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine and reveal the horrors wreaked upon Ukrainians forced to live in Russian-occupied zones. Aseyev’s account offers critical insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Aseyev also reflects on how a human can survive such atrocities and reenter the world to share his story. The emphasis of the talk will be on the inhuman conditions that Russian and Russian-controlled forces subject people to on the territories controlled by them and on Aseyev’s own experience, particularly as described in the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stanislav Aseyev is a Donetsk-born Ukrainian writer and journalist. He is the author of a collection of poetry, a play, and a novel. Under the penname Stanislav Vasin, he published short reports in the Ukrainian press about the situation on the ground following the outbreak of Russian-sponsored military hostilities in Donbas. Arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by separatist militia forces for “extremism” and “spying,” Aseyev was held captive and subjected to mistreatment and intermittent torture for over two and a half years.

This event is co-sponsored by CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will be accepting applications from eligible juniors from any university department who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL). 

On Wednesday, January 17 at 12:00 pm PT, join CDDRL faculty and current honors students to discuss the program and answer questions.

The application period opens on January 8, 2024, and runs through February 9, 2024.

For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

We have reached capacity for the in-person portion of this event. Please register above to join us virtually.

Why did Putin launch the war against Ukraine and what are his objectives and plan? How did the war impact Russia? What is the effect of Western sanctions on the Russian economy and society? How much longer can Russia sustain the war? What is the Russian public opinion regarding the war?

In this talk, Vladimir Milov will offer a highly detailed and nuanced analysis of all issues related to Russia and the war from his perspective based on long-term political experience and economic and state governance expertise.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Image