Next Public Event:

2008 George Klein Lecture
by Dr. Ray Taras, Tulane University

Phobias and Foreign Policies in Central Europe:  Do National Prejudices Determine National Security?  The Special Case of Russophobia

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7:00 pm
Fetzer Center Putney Auditorium

Four national "phobias" that shape European states' politics today are anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Russophobia.  While anti-American and anti-Muslim attitudes are both, ironically, more often found in western Europe, anti-Semitic and anti-Russian attitudes seem more commonplace in central and eastern Europe.  Do hostile citizen attitudes towards outsiders affect the making of a country’s foreign policy? With its widespread anti-Russian sentiments, Central Europe may furnish the best example of a phobia driving states’ foreign policy behavior. Divisions within the European Union and NATO over how to deal with Putin’s resurgent Russia—or the Bush administration for that matter—appear to reflect differences in national antipathies. Is prejudice, therefore, preventing the emergence of a common European security policy?

Dr. Taras will also offer a colloquium for WMU faculty and graduate students on “Xenophobic Parties and Exclusionary State Nationalisms in Western and Eastern Europe” at 3:30 pm on Sept 24 in the Political Science Library, 3301 Friedmann Hall.