The scope of this project centers on three main topics with several short texts of Pascale, and discussion to follow.  For additional information, please visit: http://romancestudies.duke.edu/european-studies.

• Pablo Beramendi (Duke University)
• Silja Häusermann (University of Zurich)
• Herbert Kitschelt (Duke University)
• Hanspeter Kriesi (University of Zurich)

Speakers & Conference Program

Click here to view the conference program and featured speakers.

Project Description

More than a decade has gone by since the publication of Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (1999), itself a follow up on the earlier Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1984). Both volumes took stock of major economic challenges advanced industrial democracies faced, as well as the ways political and economic elites understood and dealt with them by building institutions and enacting policies that ultimately shaped citizens’ quality of life.

But capitalism and democracy have not stood still in what now may be more appropriately termed postindustrial capitalism. During this time, political economies and their external environment have undergone significant changes. Along the way, the analytical toolkit to understand these changes has also gained in sophistication, complexity, and precision. New realities demand new analytical tools and the regular revision of the basic framework to understand cross-national differences and changes over time.

In this spirit, the current project sets out to analyze the dynamics of contemporary democratic capitalism in the footsteps of the two earlier volumes. Lead questions are

• What are the main challenges confronting contemporary democratic capitalism? What are the major structural constraints on political decision-makers and how do they cope with them?

• More specifically, to what extent and through which mechanisms have structural transformations altered people’s political preferences, the manner such preferences are bundled and mobilized, the institutions that intermediate the bargaining process among organized interests, and ultimately policy choices and distributive outcomes?

• Beyond all the institutional changes that have occurred, are there patterns of conflict and institutions of conflict resolution that have persisted over time? Are there polities with distinctive modes of policy-making and market regulation? And where flux prevails, can we account for the pace and direction of change resulting from citizens’ demand for new solutions to new challenges?

DukeEngage empowers students to address critical human needs through immersive service, in the process transforming students, advancing the University’s educational mission, and providing meaningful assistance to communities in the U.S. and abroad. Students each year participate in a vast range of civic engagement activities, including environmental advocacy, community outreach, global health, education, social justice and more. Please click here to find information about these immersion programs in Europe.

Study Abroad

The Global Education Office for Undergraduates offers seven (6) semester-long and 14 summer-long programs in various European countries. Additionally, other non-Duke administered approved programs are also available. An extended encounter with a foreign culture’s different values and languages can teach us how to communicate across the barriers of custom, geography, and politics. Students who have studied abroad return with a deeper understanding of other peoples, of their own cultural background, of themselves, and of their place in the world. For additional information, please click here.

The exchange program with Vienna International Summer University (VISU) has been operating successfully since its inception in 2001. Of particular interest to Duke’s faculty and graduate students is its flagship program, Scientific World Conceptions.   Each July, an international group of about thirty-five graduate students and postdocs, and three renowned scholars – philosophers, scientists and historians – meet for two weeks in Vienna for intensive study – lectures, seminars and workshops – of a central issue in science and its culture.

In the past, approximately six to twelve Duke students, coming from various disciplines including philosophy, history, political science, economics and literature, have participated every year. Students have significantly benefited from this program by establishing international connections, expanding their education, and, in some cases, sharpening their research focus. Advisors agree that it contributed significantly to their professional career.  Students interested in participating in this program should contact Professor Malachi Hacohen (mhacohen@duke.edu) for additional information.

International Research Center for Cultural Studies / IFK: Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften

The exchange program with the International Research Center for Cultural Studies, known in German as IFK: Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, in Vienna aims to promote interdisciplinary research and forge links between Austrian academic institutions and the scholarly community in the Triangle. Advanced Duke graduate students in Ph.D. programs are eligible to apply for an IFK Junior Fellow position per academic year. Students interested in participating in this program should contact Professor Malachi Hacohen (mhacohen@duke.edu) for additional information.

Erasmus Mundus

Erasmus Mundus is a transnational Consortium of eleven universities worldwide, five of which are in Europe, including the London School of Economics and Political Science, Roskilde University, the University of Leipzig, the University of Vienna, and the University of Wroclaw. The consortium offers a Master’s program, Global Studies – A European Perspective. This international research-based Master’s program combines perspectives, methods and theories developed in history, the social sciences, cultural as well as area studies and economics to investigate phenomena of global connectedness. Students study at two different European universities, for one year each. After successful completion of the program, they are able to analyze processes of globalization in various academic ways. Students interested in this program (from a few weeks up to an academic year) should contact Professor Malachi Hacohen (mhacohen@duke.edu) for additional information.

These are just a few of the exchange agreements with European institutions.

Duke Law

A workshop on international and comparative law sponsored by the Center for International & Comparative Law, the Global Law Workshop offers an exciting opportunity for the Duke Law School community to engage in current issues in international and comparative law.

Economics

The Department of Economics is home to approximately 700 undergraduate students, making economics one of the most popular majors on campus. Our graduate programs have approximately 170 students working toward a Master’s degree or Ph.D. Our outstanding faculty are distinguished in their specialties and are often sought for their expert opinion.

Germanic Languages & Literature

The Department of Germanic Languages and Literature is the University’s center for the study of German culture as well as the German language itself. From the early medieval period, through the Renaissance and Reformation, to the Enlightenment and Romanticism, down to the twentieth century and beyond, the course of human civilization is inseparable—both for good and for ill—from the impact of German and other German-speaking thinkers, writers, artists, scientists, and politicians.

History

The History Department ranks among the top fifteen programs in the country.  Our 40 plus full time faculty members cover a diverse array of topics, but share a common approach to the past:  we join deep knowledge of particular areas with broad engagement across fields and disciplines to produce award-winning scholarship.

International Comparative Studies

International Comparative Studies (ICS) is an interdisciplinary program whose mission  is to prepare lifelong learners who can live, work, and thoughtfully engage with people and problems in a complex, diverse, and interconnected world. Learning objectives include, gaining area knowledge, global and transnational dynamics, and awareness of the ways disciplines construct knowledge, to name a few.

Political Science

The Department of Political Science offers students a broad intellectual approach to the discipline. The interests of the faculty not only span the full gamut of the traditional subfields of political science, but also extend into other areas of research. Interdisciplinarity, methodological pluralism, and organizational  flexibility distinguish our approach to research and education at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Departing from  the conventions of the discipline,  the department is  organized around subfields that address meaningful questions about political life, encourage collaboration across intellectual boundaries, and place us at the  frontiers of the discipline.

Program in Literature

Since 1985, under the leadership of Fredric Jameson, the Literature Program at Duke University has renewed the tradition of comparative literature. Literary history has given way to broadly historicizing and interdisciplinary approaches to cultural phenomena, with an emphasis on the period from the late eighteenth century to the present. Literature has now become one of many different cultural phenomena that students and faculty work on, alongside film and video, and alongside cultural studies broadly conceived.

Public Policy

Established in 1971 as the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, the Sanford School of Public Policy has one of the nation’s largest public policy undergraduate programs, graduating about 175 majors each year. The School also offers selective master’s degrees programs in public policy (MPP) and international development policy, and a PhD program. MPP candidates also may earn joint or concurrent professional degrees in law, business, divinity, medicine or environmental policy.

Romance Studies

The new Program in European Studies offers an inventive framework for thinking about Europe, and working with our strong faculty in Romance Studies. Beginning in 2012, there will be a choice of new comparative courses that investigate the literature, history, and politics of France, Italy, Spain, as well as other Romance  cultures in Europe and other regions of the world.

Slavic and Eurasian Studies

The Department of Slavic & Eurasian Studies offers a wide range of courses designed to train students in the languages, cultures, and histories of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia.  Through SES students may study up to six years of Russian, three years of Polish and Turkish, and two years of Persian and Romanian.  The department offers both  undergraduate (major and minor) and graduate (Master’s and a certificate) programs of study.

Additional academic resources may be found by visiting the Center for European Studies library guide, or by contacting librarian Heidi Madden (heidi.madden@duke.edu) for assistance with specific topics.

Please contact Amy Vargas-Tonsi if you are interested in learning more about or enrolling in the Interdisciplinary European Studies graduate certificate.