EUROPEAN STUDIES
October 8, 2012
"Europe's New Fascists"
Op-Ed, Newsweek
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
“It can be a mistake to laugh at fascists,” writes the Belfer Center’s Niall Ferguson, “Charlie Chaplin mocked Hitler and Mussolini in The Great Dictator. P.G. Wodehouse had fun with his preposterous parody of Oswald Mosley, Roderick Spode. But Nazism turned out to be no joke.... So when a party called “Golden Dawn”—which has something that looks a lot like a swastika as its logo— starts denying aspects of the Holocaust and heaping opprobrium on immigrants, it’s best to keep a straight face. Sure, they’re Greeks, not Germans... But if elections were held tomorrow, these guys could become the third-largest party in the Greek Parliament.”
Spring 2012
"Trading on Preconceptions: Why World War I Was Not a Failure of Economic Interdependence"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 36, volume 4
By Erik Gartzke and Yonatan Lupu
A close look at the events leading up to World War I reveals that the war was not a failure of economic integration as many scholars have claimed. The conflict began in a weakly integrated portion of Europe, and the more integrated powers were roped in through their alliances. Before the war, the interdependent powers were able to resolve crises without bloodshed, but they were also incentivized to increase their commitment to the less interdependent powers. Had globalization pervaded Eastern Europe, or if the rest of Europe had been less locked into events in the east, Europe might have avoided a “Great War.”
Martha Stewart
Winter 2011-2012
"Belfer Faculty Member Lucas Papademos Named Prime Minister of Greece"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Lucas Papademos, the Belfer Center-based Minos A. Zombanakis Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, has been named prime minister of Greece and will lead an interim government of national unity until elections in just over three months.
AP Photo
November 17, 2011
"A Rethink for Europe"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Initially, with Europe exhausted by two world wars, fascism, totalitarianism, and the threat of communism, the EU helped to keep the peace. While combining the coal and steel communities in Germany and France served economic interests, the treaty that brought them together was always about more than dollars and cents. After all, no war could be fought, and no army could be armed, without independent access to mines and steel. Continental Europe tied its own hands to avoid slaughter in the future."
(AP Photo/Christian Lutz)
September 19, 2011
"The World Must Insist That Europe Act"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor
In his celebrated essay “The Quagmire Myth and the Stalemate Machine”, published in 1972, Daniel Ellsberg drew out the lesson regarding the Vietnam war that came out of the 8,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, which he had secretly copied a few years earlier. It was simply this: policymakers acted without illusion. At every juncture they made the minimum commitments necessary to avoid imminent disaster – offering optimistic rhetoric, but never taking the steps that even they believed could offer the prospect of decisive victory.
July 24, 2011
West and US Overlooking Threat of Homegrown Extremism
In the News
By Justin Dargin, Former Associate, The Dubai Initiative
Dubai Initiative Fellow Justin Dargin speaks to Russia Today about the threat of homegrown radicalism in the wake of the Norwegian attack.
AP Photo
May 2011
"A Bleak Future for the European Project"
Policy Brief
By Sebastian Rosato, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2005–2006
"...[A]bsent an overwhelming threat, the Europeans have had little reason to maintain their economic union. This is not to argue that the demise of the Soviet Union has given them a reason to dismantle the EU—only that it has removed their incentive to preserve it. Consequently, the EU has started to fray as member states have put national interests ahead of those of the union."
AP Photo
May 23. 2011
"BC Should Hand over Irish Archive Tapes"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"That the confidentiality agreement is sacrosanct because it involves the history of war in Northern Ireland is a romantic and dangerous defense. Terrorist organizations kill innocent victims; it’s what defines them. Replace IRA with Hamas and we wouldn't be having this theoretical debate. Among the incidents the police are investigating is the 1972 death of a widowed mother of 10."
AP Photo
Spring 2011
"Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 35
By Timothy Crawford, Former Associate, International Security Program, 2006-2009
States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to disperse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use selective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, isolating opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain’s defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s and Germany’s offensive efforts to accommodate the Soviet Union in 1939—help to demonstrate these arguments. By paying attention to these dynamics, international relations scholars can better understand how balancing works in specific cases, how it manifests more broadly in international politics, and why it sometimes fails in situations where it ought to work well.
Spring 2011
"The Security Curve and the Structure of International Politics: A Neorealist Synthesis"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 35
Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power continuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that continues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist assumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its opponents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and security. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic relationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.
