6th of May a big day in Europe

Greetings from Austria, where a 90-second review of all these elections cut to an exciting case of a Mercedes driver who lost control and plowed into the window of a shop somewhere in Upper Austria (and where the polls are suggesting a frightening turn to the right among youth when they have their elections)

There are three big results for EU politics tonight. It is a truism of doubtful value that the German-French partnership is crucial to Europe. It is clear, though, that the German-French axis is crucial to the Eurozone. This means that the European Union might see a sharp policy change- something that came up in every conversation I had in Brussels this week.

If you go through the Eurozone states, there are a few firm German allies in austerity: Austria, Finland, and Estonia, above all. The Dutch used to be the preachiest, but they had a budget meltdown a few weeks ago and have a caretaker government (what is Dutch for schadenfreude?). There are countries whose pro-austerity politics are largely due to their impossible economic constraints- Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy are ready votes for an alternative to their current predicament, but they cannot propose a solution. Then there are countries that have never been particularly happy with austerian policies, but saw no room to maneuver, such as Belgium and Slovakia.

Once France defects, where does Germany stand? Estonia is a firm supporter of a hard Euro (at devastating cost to its own economy) but it’s just not enough. Furthermore, there isn’t much evidence that Germans, or Angela Merkel, want to be left alone with only a few camp followers in European politics. So once France defects, and “Merkozy” is no more, Merkel has a big problem. Even if Hollande, the new President of France, does not pick a fight, there will be no French support for the tough austerity policies.

Merkel’s situation is in large part determined by the extent to which she can persuade German voters that they should participate in things that look like bailouts. Germany is an aging country enjoying a boom largely financed by exports to China. An aging person with windfall income is well advised to save, and many Germans see their country that way. A hard working person whose income has been stagnant for decades might also feel disinclined to bail out a teeming family of ne’er-do-well relatives, which is how many Germans see bailouts.

Her party (the CDU) just barely edged out the socialists in a regional election (Schleswig-Holstein) which introduces our second theme- party system fragmentation. The liberal FDP made it into government, as did the Greens, the Left, and the Pirates (a vaguely anarchic party focused on rights to digital piracy). It is no kind of vote of confidence in Merkel, but then again the two big German parties (SPD and CDU) have been losing votes to other parties for years. More directly is the composition of the German upper house, which is (unlike the US Senate) composed of representatives of the state governments. If the CDU can construct a governing coalition, Schleswig-Holstein might continue to support her. If it can’t, and her coalition parties don’t get into government there, it hastens the likely setback for her of the coming elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, which will probably deprive her coalition of a majority in the upper house. She might well decide to call early elections and try for another grand coalition unhampered by the unimpressive FDP, according to chitchat in Brussels (am imperfect source). She might also be able to present Germany’s increasing isolation as a justification for policy change.

The Greeks, meanwhile, also had elections. They have no power of decision- more powerful countries than they, with better reputations, have no policy autonomy within the Eurozone. So their new election is interesting principally because it extends the theme of electoral fragmentation, and because it increases the chances of instability. Electoral fragmentation? It looks like the wildly irresponsible New Democracy will be the biggest party, followed by a left party opposed to Socialist compliance with austerity, followed by the Socialists. Just for fun, a hard right party will likely join the parliament. Not surprising for a country with a right to be dissatisfied with its politicians, but alarming and likely to produce unstable governments- with unpredictable policy consequences.

What is the way forward? In Brussels, the European institutions- especially the Commission- have made themselves the microeconomic policy arm of austerity. Commission President Barroso has become particularly identified with the idea that Europe will be saved from macroeconomic meltdown by the same microeconomic reforms that have been proposed since the early 1990s. But the Commission officials, as good a weathervane of European politics as any, have been working up proposals for “social investment” (so well developed that the better wired academics are writing about it), more money for the European Investment Bank, and less microeconomic reform of dubious value.

The really isolated players are not the Germany-Estonia axis- they are the Brussels-Frankfurt axis. Barroso’s Commission might be working up proposals for social investment, but he is personally wedded to austerity and liberal microeconomic reform and would be absurd if he tried to “pivot” to something more constructive. His Secretariat has established a tremendous amount of control over the Commission, writing most key documents in keeping with his agenda of austerian and liberalizing reform. The ECB, meanwhile, has been able to get away with not doing its job because the austerity coalition supported it (as in, Mario Draghi managed to look like a social democrat rather than the chair of the executive committee of the finance sector).

Now, what will happen if the austerity coalition behind Barroso and the ECB is weak? “Non-majoritarian”, i.e. undemocratic, institutions such as the European Court of Justice have a history of bowing to overwhelming political coalitions. With the support of Germany and France, the ECB was able to impose unrealistic costs of adjustment on half the continent. WIthout France, the ECB will be very exposed and might start to shift its views. If Germany also starts to feel isolated, or less enamored of the FDP, and shifts, then the ECB would have to really believe the things economists say about central bank independence- or quietly try to contribute to growth.

In short, a good night for Europe- especially if it means the ECB feels pressure to do its job.

Incidentally, al-Jazeera English has by far the best coverage on cable- my condolences to those in America who must suffer the inanity of American cable channels.

Looking back at CES year

With the academic year behind us, things have slowed down somewhat at CES, and this is an opportunity to look back at the year that was. CES would like to invite you to visit our Facebook  Page, YouTube Channel, and iTunesU album, to listen or view media files of lectures and events in our signature series “Conversations on Europe,” hosted in the past year.

The Conversations on Europe series, sponsored by the Center for European Studies (CES), is the signature lecture series on modern Europe and the European Union at U-M. Conversations on Europe lectures highlight the intellectual benefits to be gained from the creation of arenas in which scholarly debates can interact with actual political experiences. “Conversations on Europe” lectures are often produced in collaboration between CES and its partner centers CREES, WCED, and WCEE with exciting intellectual results. For its End of Semester Luncheons/Programs, the Center taps local expertise to investigate unique topics, in a thoughtful and appropriately broad discussion on Europe’s past, present and future.

Jewish Music in the Time of the Holocaust

This Wednesday, April 18th, in collaboration with the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the Center for European Studies will present our end of semester program: a lecture and recital moderated by Timothy Cheek (Associate Professor of Voice), featuring Caroline Helton (Assistant Professor of Voice, U-M), Kathryn Goodson (piano) and Allen Schrott (bass-baritone).

Through vocal music, we are given a direct connection with a composer’s unique personality and the culture and times in which the composer lived. Anticipating the University Musical Society concert by the Pavel Haas Quartet, this presentation will examine the life and works of the award-winning Czech Jewish composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944), who continued to compose songs while interned at the Terezín concentration camp. The lecture will also touch on other Jewish composers (Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Robert Kahn, Erich Korngold, Vittorio Rieti and Kurt Weill), contemplating their individual, unique stories, how their careers before the war and their nationalities played a major role in the formation of their compositional voices, and the affect of World War II upon their lives and music.

Join us for this free public event marking the National Days of Remembrance in commemoration of the Holocaust.

Beyond Malta: Elections in Greek Universities. Authored by George Tsebelis

The article was first published by the Greek Sunday paper, Kathimerini, on March 24, 2012. For the article in Greek see:
http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_2_24/03/2012_476896

I have been watching from a distance with incredulity the debates about the Greek educational reform. Now I see that the issue has been transposed to the highest court of the land (Symvoulio Epikrateias) to assess the constitutionality of the law. The arguments are (among others) that the STV electoral system used is a marginal and extremely complicated system fit “only for countries with high party discipline like the absolute two-party system of Malta”. These statements are incorrect.

Let me first of all explain the logic of this system in a simple example, and then I will discuss where it is used and why. There was recently a referendum in the UK where STV was proposed by the liberal party that was defeated, so the UK will continue using the current plurality (first past the post) electoral system. According to the current system, the country is divided into 646 single member constituencies (since the 2001 election) and in each constituency the candidate with most votes wins the seat. The result of this electoral system is a very strong two party system (with very few exceptions – the current government being one of them –  there has always been a single party government in the UK). The reason is that voters are not likely to “waste their vote” for a third party (in this case the Liberals).

For this reason the Liberals have long wanted to alter the electoral system, and were able to hold a referendum on the electoral system as a condition to participate in government. Here is how the system would have worked. The number of constituencies would have remained the same, and each voter would have one vote, but would rank his preferences among the candidates. So, a Conservative voter would likely write 1 next to the name of the Conservative, 2 next to the Liberal, and 3 next to the Labour candidate, (because a Conservative is likely to prefer the Liberal candidate over the Labour one). A Labour voter would place the number 1 next to the Labor, 2 next to Liberal, and 3 next to Conservative candidate. A Liberal voter would place the number 1 next to his own candidate, and depending whether he was leaning to the right or the left, would place the number 2 next to the Conservative or Labour (and conversely the number 3). In order to be elected in this electoral system a plurality of votes in not sufficient as in the current system. For single member districts a majority is required (generally, it is one over the number of seats plus 1, so for single member districts in becomes 1/(1+1)). If one of the candidates has a majority of votes, he is declared the winner. If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with least votes is eliminated, and the second preference of his voters is taken into account. This process continues until one candidate has a majority.

Let me use two examples to show what happens in such a system: Suppose that the first preferences produce the following percentages: Conservative 40, Liberal 25, Labour 35. Then the Liberal candidate is eliminated, but his voters are the ones that decide whether the seat will be won by the Conservative or the Labour candidate (if more than 40% of the originally Liberal vote (i.e., 10% of the voters in the district) reports the Conservative as the second choice, the Conservative wins the seat; otherwise Labour does). Suppose now that the first votes were distributed so that the Liberal candidate would have the first or second number of votes: say Conservative 40, Liberal 35, and Labour 25. Then the Labor candidate would be eliminated and his second votes would transfer to the Liberal (remember that Labour voters prefer Liberals over Conservatives) and the Liberal would win the seat. Here is the important result of the STV system: it makes the center party voters either pick the winner or elect their own representative. This is why the Liberals wanted the STV system, why the two major parties did not, and why the Liberals lost in the referendum. The STV system produces centrist outcomes in a single dimensional policy space (a left right division of the country). This is why it was proposed by Maurice Duverger to the French Prime Minster Edgar Faure for the 1954 elections (personal communication). This is the political use and potential of STV. But the more interesting story is its use in non primary political contexts.

 STV has been used for elections in other contexts besides parliamentary competitions. For example, it has been used for municipal elections in American cities like Cleveland Ohio, Sacramento California, New York City and others between the wars (after WWII it was replaced because it was leading to the election of black or communist representatives). It is used in the election of school boards. It is used by student associations in Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, UC Davis, Cambridge, and Oxford. It is used by political parties, trade unions, and peak business associations in Australia. It is also used by the Royal Statistical Academy in the UK as well as the Academy awards for best picture in the US.

 So, the argument that it is applied only in cases “strong partisans and partisan identification” is patently false. Actually the opposite is true. There is no party organization with so much discipline as to impose the whole list of preferences to the voters. A party may ask the voters to vote only for its own candidates and nobody else. It may or may not succeed in such an enterprise, because it is in the interest of voters to provide a complete list (otherwise their vote may be wasted). It may ask its supporters to rank their votes in a particular order for coalition formation purposes. However, voters may have different preferences over the available candidates than do party leaders. If a voter provides a complete list of his choices, in an environment that is not extremely politicized, chances are that his second or third vote will go for the most well known and the most appropriate individuals to fill the position regardless of their political affiliation.

Also, because the system of counting is time consuming it reduces the possibility of strategic voting (that is, misrepresentation of ordinal preferences in order to produce better results for a voter). According to the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem there is no strategy proof deterministic electoral system with more than three alternatives, but it is quite unlikely that voters or even parties will be able to acquire the necessary amount of information to manipulate the system.

Finally, there is one important psychological advantage of the STV system. Every vote is counted, if not as a first preference as second or third and so forth (unless the voter does not provide all his preferences). This provides profound satisfaction to all the participants in an election using the STV system.

The system is used beyond Malta (and Ireland and Australia). More importantly, it is used beyond politics and it has very desirable properties for the election of academic councils: it moves voters beyond party lines, it discourages strategic voting, and it rewards voters with a vote that counts.

“I could never be the poet of one country”

These are the words of Mehmet Yashin, a writer from Cyprus who is going to give a talk at the U of Michigan with the title: “Writing in a Mediterranean Island. In-Between Languages and Literary Spaces.”  The talk is taking place on March 22^nd at 4pm at the International Institute.

We invite the Michigan community to join us to think together about what it means to be a minority writer, to be homeless in one’s language while dealing with the trauma of war and national violence. This is the first time that a writer from Cyprus is giving a talk at the University of Michigan and this is a great opportunity for everyone interested to hear about this part of the Mediterranean world.

Cyprus since the depth of time has been a place of various exchanges. Different rulers have conquered the island bringing along their languages, religions, cultures, scripts, armies, and people and left a mark on the physiognomy of the people inhabiting the island. All these different types of rulers, Hellenes, Phoenicians, Arabs, Romans, French, Venetian, Ottoman and British worked as circulators of power among different ruling elites. The rural population of the island that consisted mostly of Greek, Armenian and Maronites until 1571 and additionally Turks during and after the Ottoman period was receptive to all the civilizations of these empires.

There is a paradox that defines these populations: while rooted to the same geographic location they are the ones in the throes of continuous change even though it is their rulers who keep changing. Cypriots are able to take on different identities at different times and be receivers of multi-cultural characteristics. Today, they contemplate their existence, which is a product of many oppressive mediations. Mehmet Yashin contemplates the effects of these mediations:

“What was my real name? Did I ever have a real name? The conquerors have brought in some kind of surname law; they have registered us under their own names. They have posted our new identity down below.”

The multiplicity of Cyprus’ civilizations cancels its singular and homogenous existence in the world of nations. Mehmet Yashin’s work bears this multiplicity of cultures especially in his choice of language. He sometimes uses Karamanlidika, Turkish languages written in Greek script, in order to show the cultural cohabitation that happens in languages. He writes:

“I was often unsure in which language to shed tears, the life I lived wasn’t foreign, but one of translation, my mother-tongue one thing, my mother-land another, and I again, altogether different […] I could never be the poet of one country, because I belong to a minority. And ‘freedom’ is still an uneasy word in any nation’s lexicon.”

Mehmet Yashin’s in-betweeness is a constant process that horizontally transmutes the borders of history. His name is that of change. His home is change itself.

His work expresses the tragedy of searching for a language that is one’s own. In the world of nations his words are homeless and for this reason his poetry points to longings of the past where connections among different identities coexisted. He feels that his words now need to be deported in the realm of a poetic nation where he is free to express different dimensions of a culturally complex history and identity.

His writing expresses the existential problem of those people who belong to a nation always stuck in the cracks of the nations of others, an experience similar to writers such as Anton Shammas and Gazi Kaplani.

In another occasion he writes:

“We don’t have an identity card that’s valid in the world. Doesn’t that indicate that we don’t exist? That we think we exist is another matter.”

Mehmet Yashin is also going to have a book reading on March 23^rd at the UMMA at 4pm.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/meditopos/mehmet_yashin

Interest in any of the following topics will make his talk relevant to you: colonialism-postcolonialism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, translation, childhood trauma, Mediterranean imagination, borderlines between Greek and Turk, Greek and Turkish literatures, homelessness and many more.

Speaking in tongues

Lingua in mundo nostro velociter mutat. Genti movir mucho mucho, necessari trovar hablar novo. If du non parler same sprache, bisognar invent lisan!

Three sentences, each written in a dead language, or at least in a language that is not alive (but do languages really breathe, eat and move about the world as autonomous living beings)? Three sentences: the first in Latin; the second in the lingua franca spoken in the early modern Mediterranean; the third in Europanto, a language invented by Diego Marani to answer the challenge of linguistic complexity in contemporary Europe. Dr. Marani will speak at CES on Thursday as our Distinguished Lecturer on Europe and our contribution to the LSA Language theme semester. We invite the U-M community to join us – to think together about languages, common and uncommon.

Languages are only as alive as the tongues that speak them (or the fingers that text them). In recent years, human mobility and new media have inspired the creation of new languages, from Globish to Spanglish to 3Arabizi. The image above (from a current exhibition at Hatcher Graduate Library) shows the Arabic language learning new tricks: Arabic written in the Latin alphabet, for the purpose of texting or facebooking. Evviva hablar jadid!

Artemis Leontis on Greece, Germany, and the Euro Zone Debt Crisis

Shared from IB Times. Published Tuesday, March 5, 2012.

Artemis Leontis, associate professor of Modern Greek, Hunting Family Professor Institute for the Humanities, and CES faculty associate, University of Michigan, interviewed on Greece, Germany, and the Euro Zone Debt Crisis for the IB Times.

Part I
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/309317/20120305/greece-germany-debt-crisis-hostility-nazi-occupation.htm

Part II
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/309325/20120305/greeks-germany-merkel-nazi-occupation-hostility.htm

HELLAS ESSENTIALIZED

HELLAS ESSENTIALIZED: ANTIQUITY, THE GR€€K CRISIS,

AND POLITICAL CARTOONS IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE

“Wars, greed, corruption, political shenanigans, terrorism, infighting and intrigue. Should be a great year for us.” (quoted by Martyn Turner in his book The Noble Art of Politics, 1996)

 

Given the current state of world affairs, political cartoonists—practitioners of the so-called “art of ill will”—must surely find their plates brimming with possibilities, not least with the offerings served up by the recent Greek crisis. Indeed, the current economic woes in Greece have created a perfect menu for political cartoonists: the reach of the disaster is global, the country provides well-known, easily recognized images that encapsulate its national identity, and the world eagerly seeks to assign blame for the economic mess.

As an archaeologist who works in Greece, I found myself wondering whether classically derived images were repeatedly being chosen to satirize the current situation and, if so, how Greek identity was crystallized in those single-frame narratives. After all, the study and interrogation of Greek identity has often focused on the modern deployment of Greece’s antiquity; archaeological remains and ancient mythological images are omnipresent in modern Greece, comprising a major part of its symbolic and cultural capital…          Please continue reading here…. http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/modgreek/Home/Window%20to%20Greek%20Culture/Lectures%20at%20U-M/LaUM_TalalayEyesonEuropeBlog1.pdf

 

Speaking of British Punk…

… check out The Slits on the cover of the NME here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/26/nme-60-editors-favourite-covers?fb=native         We still lack a book on British (let alone Continental) rock criticism.

The anti-Adele

The song begins with throbbing power chords and a caustic voice, plaintive but clear and strong. By the end of the first verse we know where we are: this is a power ballad ca. 1978, tweaked by one of the seminal punk bands of the age to flip the cheap play on our heartstrings (and pocketbooks) that characterized the ballad genre. This is not Kiss’s “Beth”, not Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, not even Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”. Like other anthem retakes – Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” comes to mind – the song turns genre expectations upside down, a taunting celebration of the soulless, bloodless mating of the eponymous germ-free adolescents.

One thing, though, doesn’t fit the mold (either of ballad or anti-ballad): the voice is a woman’s. Poly Styrene (R.I.P.) was one of the fiercest, most iconoclastic vocalists of her age. And she had plenty of company. The British punk scene was especially – unexpectedly – welcoming to women vocalists. Why made the British music industry so receptive to women vocalists during the punk years? Why did the London scene embrace women’s take on dystopia – accepting even women fronting all-male outfits, like Poly Styrene and her X-Ray Spex? What did women have to say when they took the mike?

Join us at CES for a talk from Michigan’s own Karen Fournier (Assistant Professor in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance) on women and the British punk scene. Karen is at work on a monograph with the irresistible title Punk and Disorderly: Acting Out Gender and Class in Early British Punk. She will rock out this Thursday, March 8, at 4:00.