Members of the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s Strategic Research Center will discuss Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East in the context of the Arab Spring. They will try to shed light on the factors that influenced Turkey's response to the democratic uprisings of the last three years, with special emphasis on the Syrian case. The Strategic Research Center is the Ministry's in-house think-tank to establish channels of communication between policy makers and the academic and research community. It also works as a consultative body to provide foreign policy decision makers with scholarly assessments of relevant issues and reviews Turkish foreign policy with a future perspective. read more
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EU accession holds the best hope for overcoming stagnation on democracy-building and state consolidation in the Western Balkan region, which was ravaged by war in the 1990s. The United States and the European Union have reinforced their cooperation in order to reinvigorate this process, but the integration of the Western Balkans into European institutions is complex and will require innovative thinking.
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The Latest from the European Studies
Turkey and the Arab Spring
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June 13, 2013 // 3:00pm — 5:00pm
Members of the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s Strategic Research Center will discuss Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East in the context of the Arab Spring. They will try to shed light on the factors that influenced Turkey's response to the democratic uprisings of the last three years, with special emphasis on the Syrian case. The Strategic Research Center is the Ministry's in-house think-tank to establish channels of communication between policy makers and the academic and research community. It also works as a consultative body to provide foreign policy decision makers with scholarly assessments of relevant issues and reviews Turkish foreign policy with a future perspective. more
East European Studies Short-term Research Scholarships
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Jun 07, 2013
The Wilson Center's European Studies Program is now accepting applications for the EES Short-term Grant competition, which is open to academic experts and practitioners, including advanced graduate students, engaged in specialized research requiring access to Washington, DC and its research institutions. Grants are for one month and include residence at the Wilson Center. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, in order to be considered eligible for this grant opportunity. The deadline for this grant cycle is: September 1, 2013. more
The Arab Spring in Comparative Perspective
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June 05, 2013 // 10:00am — 5:30pm
“The Arab Spring in Comparative Perspective: Dramatic Transitions in Recent Decades” conference took place on June 4th and 5th in Washington, D.C., co-organized by American University’s School of International Service, the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars’ Brazil Institute, Global Europe Program, Mexico Institute, and Middle East Studies Program. The aim of this initial workshop was to consider dramatic transitional experiences in Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and Eastern Europe and included a series of panels examining specific facets of transitional experiences: constitutional developments (including democratic reforms); economic and social affairs; justice and human rights issues; the evolving experiences of women; external pressures and interventions. In each case, a commentator with expertise on the Middle East and North Africa was asked to reflect on the possible relevance of other “transitional” experiences to understanding the dynamics and prospects of the “Arab Spring.” These reflections also served as the primary task of the workshop’s concluding Round Table discussion. more
The Trans-Pacific Partnership: New Rules for a New Era
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June 19, 2013 // 2:00pm — 5:00pm
On June 19, 2013, Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank, former U.S. Trade Representative, and former Deputy Secretary of State will give a global perspective of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership could mean for future trade negotiations followed by a distinguished group of panelists who will speak on the important aspects of a future trade model and how the Trans-Pacific Partnership fits into other regional trade agreements. more
Rediscovering the Umma
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May 10, 2013
Ina Merdjanova, former Southeast Europe policy scholar, releases her latest monograph Rediscovering the Umma. "Ina Merdjanova discusses the conditions and role of Islam in relation to post-Ottoman nation-building, the communist period, and post-communist developments in the Balkans, focusing in particular on the remarkable transformations experienced by Muslim communities after the end of the Cold War. Amidst multiple structural and cultural transitions, they sought to renegotiate their place and reclaim their Islamic identities in formally secular legal and normative environments, mostly as minorities in majority-Christian societies." (Oxford University Press) more