Events / Ivan Vejvoda

	Title	Date	Type Sort ascending	Speakers
	Manufactured Alienation	Mon, 24.02.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda	Manufactured Alienation Mon, 24.02.2020 Speakers: Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Boris Johnson turned the recent UK election into a referendum on the character of politics, and won by making democracy miserable. Based on years of investigating the dark money funded institutions which drove Brexit in the UK, undercover reporting across Europe, and street interviews with voters from Hungary to Spain and Scotland to Italy, openDemocracy’s Adam Ramsay detailed how elite networks of the super-rich and ultra-conservatives are sewing discontent with (neo)liberal democracy, and argued that progressives must embrace radical democracy. Read more
Manufactured Alienation Mon, 24.02.2020 Speakers: Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Boris Johnson turned the recent UK election into a referendum on the character of politics, and won by making democracy miserable. Based on years of investigating the dark money funded institutions which drove Brexit in the UK, undercover reporting across Europe, and street interviews with voters from Hungary to Spain and Scotland to Italy, openDemocracy’s Adam Ramsay detailed how elite networks of the super-rich and ultra-conservatives are sewing discontent with (neo)liberal democracy, and argued that progressives must embrace radical democracy. Read more
	Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War	Tue, 28.03.2023	Seminars and Colloquia	Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic	Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War Tue, 28.03.2023 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Finland holds elections on 2 April 2023. The campaign focuses on domestic issues, but the war in Ukraine cannot be ignored. The seminar addressed both domestic and security issues. Does Finland fear the spillover of the Russo-Ukrainian War? How does the war affect the elections? Read more
Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War Tue, 28.03.2023 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Finland holds elections on 2 April 2023. The campaign focuses on domestic issues, but the war in Ukraine cannot be ignored. The seminar addressed both domestic and security issues. Does Finland fear the spillover of the Russo-Ukrainian War? How does the war affect the elections? Read more
	The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers	Wed, 23.09.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda	The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers Wed, 23.09.2020 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Starting with the annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014, scholars and analysts have been debating the standoff between the West and competitors such as Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and lately China on Europe’s periphery. “The return of geopolitics” has become a standard phrase to describe the new moment in the international politics of Eastern and Southeast Europe. A contrast is drawn with the 2000s, the highmark of the European Union’s “transformative power” and NATO’s eastward expansion. But the top-down view highlighting the preferences and actions of big players, including core EU member states like Germany and France, Russia, Turkey etc. overlooks the critical role played by peripheral countries and their elites. Rather than being the object of great powers’ decisions, they manipulate rivalries in pursuit of political advantage. Though the domestic arena provides entry points for external actors’ influence it also empowers incumbent elites in the target countries. The talk drew on examples from Southeast Europe (the Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece) but drew parallels to the post-Soviet space. Read more
The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers Wed, 23.09.2020 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Starting with the annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014, scholars and analysts have been debating the standoff between the West and competitors such as Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and lately China on Europe’s periphery. “The return of geopolitics” has become a standard phrase to describe the new moment in the international politics of Eastern and Southeast Europe. A contrast is drawn with the 2000s, the highmark of the European Union’s “transformative power” and NATO’s eastward expansion. But the top-down view highlighting the preferences and actions of big players, including core EU member states like Germany and France, Russia, Turkey etc. overlooks the critical role played by peripheral countries and their elites. Rather than being the object of great powers’ decisions, they manipulate rivalries in pursuit of political advantage. Though the domestic arena provides entry points for external actors’ influence it also empowers incumbent elites in the target countries. The talk drew on examples from Southeast Europe (the Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece) but drew parallels to the post-Soviet space. Read more
	Eroding Trust	Wed, 07.10.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Ivan Vejvoda Srdjan Cvijic	Eroding Trust Wed, 07.10.2020 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Srdjan Cvijic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Freedom came to Serbia in 2000, with a decade-long delay with respect to the rest of the post-Communist Europe. Ever since, the country has been on a wobbly transition towards an established democracy and EU membership. More than Serbia’s inability to settle firmly on a Westward geopolitical course and its uneasy relationship with its neighbors, it is the lack of trust between the citizens and their government internally that stood in the way of the construction of a lasting democracy. Was there a political conspiracy to murder of Zoran Djindjic, the first democratically elected Prime Minister since WW2? Did a criminal network steal more than three thousand babies from mid-1950s to 2000, and gave them to illegal adoption? Is sustainable democratisation compatible with the unreformed security service and their monopoly on secrets? Is the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the current regime historically unique, or can it be set in the broader historical perspective of state capture and disregard of the independent institutions in Serbia and Yugoslavia? The answer to these questions concerning Serbia can serve as an allegory for all of the post-Communist world’s untold stories that combined, offer an explanation to its shaky democratization in the last three decades. Populists and their outlandish conspiracy theories did not come from thin air. It is the lack of transparency and accountability of the mainstream governments that created reservoirs of disgruntled citizens thus transforming them in an easy prey for the enemies of democracy. Read more
Eroding Trust Wed, 07.10.2020 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Srdjan Cvijic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Freedom came to Serbia in 2000, with a decade-long delay with respect to the rest of the post-Communist Europe. Ever since, the country has been on a wobbly transition towards an established democracy and EU membership. More than Serbia’s inability to settle firmly on a Westward geopolitical course and its uneasy relationship with its neighbors, it is the lack of trust between the citizens and their government internally that stood in the way of the construction of a lasting democracy. Was there a political conspiracy to murder of Zoran Djindjic, the first democratically elected Prime Minister since WW2? Did a criminal network steal more than three thousand babies from mid-1950s to 2000, and gave them to illegal adoption? Is sustainable democratisation compatible with the unreformed security service and their monopoly on secrets? Is the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the current regime historically unique, or can it be set in the broader historical perspective of state capture and disregard of the independent institutions in Serbia and Yugoslavia? The answer to these questions concerning Serbia can serve as an allegory for all of the post-Communist world’s untold stories that combined, offer an explanation to its shaky democratization in the last three decades. Populists and their outlandish conspiracy theories did not come from thin air. It is the lack of transparency and accountability of the mainstream governments that created reservoirs of disgruntled citizens thus transforming them in an easy prey for the enemies of democracy. Read more
	“Architects of the Better World”: The Birth of the International Parliamentary Complex (1918–1998)	Mon, 04.09.2023	Seminars and Colloquia	Daniel Quiroga-Villamarin Ivan Vejvoda	“Architects of the Better World”: The Birth of the International Parliamentary Complex (1918–1998) Mon, 04.09.2023 Speakers: Daniel Quiroga-Villamarin Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Daniel Quiroga-Villamarin argued that the “architecture of international cooperation” is a relevant question for international legal history. Instead of taking purpose-built environments for granted, he traced a genealogy of the emergence of the international parliamentary complex as a spatial technology of global governance (1918–1998). Read more
“Architects of the Better World”: The Birth of the International Parliamentary Complex (1918–1998) Mon, 04.09.2023 Speakers: Daniel Quiroga-Villamarin Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Daniel Quiroga-Villamarin argued that the “architecture of international cooperation” is a relevant question for international legal history. Instead of taking purpose-built environments for granted, he traced a genealogy of the emergence of the international parliamentary complex as a spatial technology of global governance (1918–1998). Read more
	Who is Telling Us What? Why? And How?	Wed, 14.10.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Alison Smale Ivan Vejvoda	Who is Telling Us What? Why? And How? Wed, 14.10.2020 Speakers: Alison Smale Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia With technological change so rapid, and global concerns rivaling the traditionally local focus of most human beings, media assume an ever more important role in our societies. That is particularly true in central and eastern Europe, where journalists and their audience mostly have had a mere three decades to establish and mold independent media that suit or reflect their societies. Just in the weeks since Alison Smale was writing to Ivan on her chosen subject, developments in the former Soviet space – in this case, Belarus, and its Baltic and Polish neighbors, and Russia and Germany over Alexei Navalny – have shown their power to surprise most outside observers, and thus to influence the world. Who is telling this tale, and how? Read more
Who is Telling Us What? Why? And How? Wed, 14.10.2020 Speakers: Alison Smale Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia With technological change so rapid, and global concerns rivaling the traditionally local focus of most human beings, media assume an ever more important role in our societies. That is particularly true in central and eastern Europe, where journalists and their audience mostly have had a mere three decades to establish and mold independent media that suit or reflect their societies. Just in the weeks since Alison Smale was writing to Ivan on her chosen subject, developments in the former Soviet space – in this case, Belarus, and its Baltic and Polish neighbors, and Russia and Germany over Alexei Navalny – have shown their power to surprise most outside observers, and thus to influence the world. Who is telling this tale, and how? Read more
	Religious Fundamentalism and the Decline of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Central Europe	Mon, 17.05.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Amanda Coakley Dennis Patterson Ivan Vejvoda	Religious Fundamentalism and the Decline of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Central Europe Mon, 17.05.2021 Speakers: Amanda Coakley Dennis Patterson Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia In the shadow of population decline some Central European states have turned their attention to curtailing women’s access to abortion and in the case of Poland, effectively outlawing it. These policy moves are not only the work of illiberal governments. They are also heavily linked to religious institutions who for decades have labelled women’s reproductive rights as enemy number one on the battlefield of moral values. Calling for a “return to traditional family values” is not the path to economic and social prosperity. Yet it is a clarion call sounded from Warsaw to Budapest. Furthermore, these moves are indicative of the Church’s desire to maintain its political as well as religious influence as a growing number of people in the region chose a more secular life. Read more
Religious Fundamentalism and the Decline of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Central Europe Mon, 17.05.2021 Speakers: Amanda Coakley Dennis Patterson Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia In the shadow of population decline some Central European states have turned their attention to curtailing women’s access to abortion and in the case of Poland, effectively outlawing it. These policy moves are not only the work of illiberal governments. They are also heavily linked to religious institutions who for decades have labelled women’s reproductive rights as enemy number one on the battlefield of moral values. Calling for a “return to traditional family values” is not the path to economic and social prosperity. Yet it is a clarion call sounded from Warsaw to Budapest. Furthermore, these moves are indicative of the Church’s desire to maintain its political as well as religious influence as a growing number of people in the region chose a more secular life. Read more
	Europe’s Futures Colloquium with Hanna Shelest	Thu, 14.09.2023	Seminars and Colloquia	Hanna Shelest Ivan Vejvoda	Europe’s Futures Colloquium with Hanna Shelest Thu, 14.09.2023 Speakers: Hanna Shelest Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has prompted the need to wholly rethink and revise European strategies and policies. A broad spectrum of aspects playing into today’s situation were assessed, with an emphasis on contextualizing reactions of politicians in Europe to the unprompted Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with respect to their position on the political spectrum. Read more
Europe’s Futures Colloquium with Hanna Shelest Thu, 14.09.2023 Speakers: Hanna Shelest Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has prompted the need to wholly rethink and revise European strategies and policies. A broad spectrum of aspects playing into today’s situation were assessed, with an emphasis on contextualizing reactions of politicians in Europe to the unprompted Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with respect to their position on the political spectrum. Read more
	Learning From the Prespa Agreement	Wed, 21.10.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Ioannis Armakolas Ivan Vejvoda	Learning From the Prespa Agreement Wed, 21.10.2020 Speakers: Ioannis Armakolas Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia The Macedonia name dispute, one of the very first disputes of the post-Cold War era in Southeast Europe, was finally settled in June 2018 with the signing of the Prespa Agreement. The deal between Greece and North Macedonia was hailed as historic and an important breakthrough for the entire region’s integration to Western institutions. However, because the name dispute was broadly seen internationally as an incomprehensible spat, without fully grasping the high emotional load and the significant political stakes in both countries, not enough attention has been paid to the complex process leading to the settling of the dispute and to the challenges of a demanding implementation process. Read more
Learning From the Prespa Agreement Wed, 21.10.2020 Speakers: Ioannis Armakolas Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia The Macedonia name dispute, one of the very first disputes of the post-Cold War era in Southeast Europe, was finally settled in June 2018 with the signing of the Prespa Agreement. The deal between Greece and North Macedonia was hailed as historic and an important breakthrough for the entire region’s integration to Western institutions. However, because the name dispute was broadly seen internationally as an incomprehensible spat, without fully grasping the high emotional load and the significant political stakes in both countries, not enough attention has been paid to the complex process leading to the settling of the dispute and to the challenges of a demanding implementation process. Read more
	Surviving Human Trafficking: Activism as a Way Through the Struggle	Mon, 03.10.2022	Seminars and Colloquia	Ivan Vejvoda Milica Kravić Aksamit Misha Glenny	Surviving Human Trafficking: Activism as a Way Through the Struggle Mon, 03.10.2022 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Milica Kravić Aksamit Misha Glenny Series: Seminars and Colloquia In her talk, Milica Kravić Aksamit presented her recent analyses and work on the television and radio piece “Osnažena” (Empowered), which narrates the stories of female survivors and activists who live in Belgrade but came from various African countries. Besides illustrating their life trajectories, the story reinforces the fact that human trafficking and gender-based violence are important social phenomena. The idea of Kravić Aksamit’s work is to show an uncommon perspective with focus on the bright and inspiring side of survivors’ lives, rather than on problems only. Read more
Surviving Human Trafficking: Activism as a Way Through the Struggle Mon, 03.10.2022 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Milica Kravić Aksamit Misha Glenny Series: Seminars and Colloquia In her talk, Milica Kravić Aksamit presented her recent analyses and work on the television and radio piece “Osnažena” (Empowered), which narrates the stories of female survivors and activists who live in Belgrade but came from various African countries. Besides illustrating their life trajectories, the story reinforces the fact that human trafficking and gender-based violence are important social phenomena. The idea of Kravić Aksamit’s work is to show an uncommon perspective with focus on the bright and inspiring side of survivors’ lives, rather than on problems only. Read more