Podcasts / Vienna Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda

In the latest Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to political activism expert, Head of Communications at Forum Alpbach and Europe’s Futures fellow Teresa Reiter about the way that history is taught, utilized and remembered in twenty-first century Europe. From the ways that national foreign policy shapes curricula to the tendency to write the recent history of the Western Balkans out of a mainstream narrative that sees the creation of the EU as a successful project to end war in the continent – Ivan and Teresa bring their personal and academic perspectives to an issue that is central to how Europe sees itself.

Find Teresa Reiter on twitter @schwindelfrei  or on her website at http://www.teresareiter.com

In this fortnight’s Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to EU diplomat and academic Julia De Clerck-Sachsse about the power of narratives to shape policy and the future of the European project. Was Barack Obama right to say that “perhaps [Europe needs] an outsider, somebody who is not European, to remind [it] of the magnitude of what [it has] achieved”? As enlargement proceeds and threats to the democratic order arise, is Europe able to tell itself the stories that it needs to face up to new challenges?

A diplomat and an academic, Julia De Clerck-Sachsse served as the speechwriter and communications adviser to EU High Representatives for Foreign and Security Policy, Lady Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini. She is leading a research project at Oxford University on the EU’s geopolitical narrative and works on transatlantic relations, EU foreign and security policy; also a foreign-policy Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is a 2020/21 “Europe’s Futures”fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences and ERSTE Foundation.

In our third Vienna Coffee House Conversation Ivan Vejvoda talks to Wolfgang Merkel, professor emeritus of political science at Berlin's Humboldt University, author and editor of numerous influential books - including 2018's Democracy and Crisis: Challenges in Turbulent Times - and a visiting IWM fellow.
Starting with a discussion of his article, "Who Governs in Deep Crises?: The Case of Germany" - published as the world reckoned with the spread of coronavirus in May 2020 - Merkel and Vejvoda discuss the challenges facing and the dynamics at play in democratic societies in times of political and social strife. They address the decline of mainstream parties, the shortfall of representation on one side of a new political divide and the political modesty of Merkel's powerful namesake.

Wolfgang Merkel is on twitter @merkel_wolfgang and his most recent book, Democracy and Crisis: Challenges in Turbulent Times is available from Springer. His 2020 article 'Who Governs in Deep Crises?" can be read at Berghahn.

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

In our second Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks with Srdjan Cvijic. Senior Policy Analyst at the Open Society European Policy Institute and Europe’s Futures Fellow, Cvijic is a leading advocate on multiple foreign policy portfolios, particularly on the work of keeping the promise of European Union enlargement. In this discussion, Vejvoda and Cvijic dive into the multi-faceted dimensions of this ever-present European issue and consider the apparent fading of the EU’s fervour for greater expansion and the dulling of the EU flag’s lustre in the ambitions of candidate countries. There has always been a conflict between the desire for a deeper Europe and the desire for a wider one – the thorny question of enlargement is where the Union’s frontiers meet the dilemmas at its heart.

Srdjan Cvijic is on twitter @srdjancvijic.  He is frequently sought out by the media and has published extensively, in both academic and policy format, on EU foreign relations and the politics of the Balkans  Previously Dr. Cvijic was a senior diplomat posted in the missions of the Republic of Serbia in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Cvijic also worked as the advisor for the Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, European Policy Centre and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. (Find more of his work at Euractiv and Poiltico.)

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the IWM’s Europe’s Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

In the first of our series of coffee house conversations, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to Dimitar Bechev - IWM and Atlantic Council fellow, visiting researcher at Oxford and King's college and author of 2017's 'Rival Power: Russia's Influence in Southeast Europe' described in The Economist as 'The right author of the right book at the right time'.

In an in-depth conversation, Vejvoda and Bechev discuss the 30 year Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the nature of frozen conflicts, the geopolitics of energy and influence; and the prospects for positive change in the future.

Dimitar Bechev is on twitter @DimitarBechev and his most recent book is, Rival Power - Russia in Southeast Europe published by Yale University Press. He is Adjunct Professor if European Studies and International Relations at the University of Sofia and a 2020/21 Europe’s Futures Fellow at the IWM.

Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.