According to Wall, “Britain finds itself torn more than in the past between the United States whose closest friend it wants to be and its European partners with whom its interests most closely align.” A strong supporter of the EU, which he called the most important political development” of his lifetime, he argued that Britain’s future lies with Europe. Over British and French fears of loss of national sovereignty, he stressed the importance of supranational institutions able to manage “the querulous relationship between countries that remain fiercely nationalistic” and at the same time “capable of harnessing the shared value systems and economic interests of the member states and creating value added for the membership of the Union as a whole.” Referring to the pending referenda on the EU constitutional treaty, he concluded, “Unless Blair, Chirac and Schroeder, and the other governments of Europe, can rediscover and champion the supranational vision of Europe we will not carry conviction with our publics or maintain our coherence and momentum. And we will be a querulous partner of the United States, not an effective one.” Responding to Sir Stephen was Stanley Hoffmann, Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. Professor Hoffmann shared Sir Stephen’s hopes that the constitutional treaty would be ratified in both France and Britain, noting that both countries had taken an unnecessary risk in putting the treaty to a vote.

Sir Stephen Wall’s book, A Stranger in Europe, was published in 2008.

Michel Rocard’s lecture was an attempt to place the irritation between the United States and France, “two friendly nations, sharing largely the same ideals and values, who in 230 years have never been at war with each other,” in historical perspective. His “reflections” chronicled the “difficult cohabitation” between the United States and France since 1919. On the French side, he said, there is jealousy of America’s huge success at nation building, and regret over lost empire and the replacement by English of their language as the world language of diplomacy. Tensions are exacerbated by each country’s pride and insularism. “France is affected with what I would call provincialism with universal pretension,” Rocard commented. He went on: “Within Europe, France has the fewest citizens who speak more than one foreign language. The French people do not travel enough, or know the world enough” while the United States, for its part, is “drunk with power” and this “enormous, un-equilibrated, un-counterweighted power with weak experience of history” is one of the great problems of the contemporary period. Rocard recounted the vicissitudes in the Franco-American relationship, but underscored that ever since America’s war for independence from Great Britain – won with the help of France – the two countries have, when it has mattered, been allied. In spite of his “great fear that this rift between France and the United States could be deepened,” he expressed his hope for reconciliation. “That’s one of the challenges that could be addressed in your upcoming presidential election,” he said.

Kurt Biedenkopf is a leading CDU politician in Germany. From 1990 to 2002 he was Minister-President of the Free State of Saxony, where he played a crucial role in modernizing the eastern German state. A scholar of political science and law, Professor Biedenkopf is a visiting professor at the Universität Leipzig. He is an expert in transatlantic issues as well as in the effects of globalization. He studied political science at Davidson College and law and economics in Munich, Frankfurt and at Georgetown University. Professor Biedenkopf is now the Chairman of the Hertie School of Governance, Germany’s first Professional School for Public Policy. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1976 to 1980 and again from 1987 to 1990.

Peter A. Hall is the Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard University. After completing a B.A. in economics and political science at the University of Toronto and an M. Phil. at Balliol College, Oxford, he worked in Ottawa as a parliamentary assistant before taking a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1982. His books include Governing the Economy, which won the Woodrow Wilson Award for the best book in political science published in 1986, The Political Power of Economic Ideas (1989) and Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (edited with David Soskice 2001). Dr. Hall is the author of over fifty articles on comparative public policy-making, comparative political economy, and institutional analysis, for which he has received several prizes.

In his lecture Professor Katznelson explores origins of the distinctive, and shifting, varieties of liberalism at the root of the tensions between the United States and Europe. He describes the influence of the New Deal in America, in particular, the values of the Democratic south, in shaping Western Europe and the international order in the aftermath of World War II. The transformation of American liberalism, beginning with election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, has led many Europeans to question US power and legitimacy. The question, Katznelson argues, is what kind of liberalism we wish to have.
This lecture aired on WBUR on March 9, 2003. We are grateful to WBUR for making the recording available to EU for YOU.

Ira Katznelson is the Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University. He is an Americanist whose work straddles comparative politics and political theory, as well political and social history. His most recent books are When Affirmative Action Was White (2005), and Desolation and Enlightenment: Political Knowledge after Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Holocaust (2003). Other books include Black Men, White Cities (1973), City Trenches (1981), Schooling for All (with Margaret Weir, 1985), Marxism and the City (1992), and Liberalism’s Crooked Circle (1996). Professor Katznelson has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

John Stone is Professor of Sociology and Department Chair. His research interests focus on comparative race and ethnic relations, international migration, social change and sociological theory. He is the founder and editor of Ethnic and Racial Studies (Routledge, 1978-1989).

This week’s podcast is a re-broadcast of a February 20o3 lecture by IHS board member Michael Mertes entitled “German-American Relations before and after September 11.”

Mertes’ lecture, which took place at Boston University, just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, explores the unravelling of the formerly close German-American relationship in the months following September 11 and helps us to understand the rift that would develop between the two countries under Chancellor Schroeder. Political priorities for both countries may have shifted, but the need for strong German-American partnership remains as vital as ever.

As Dr. Karen Donfried, Executive Vice President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, points out, even while official attitudes have softened, public sentiment in Europe remains strongly anti-American, or at least, anti-Bush. The upcoming US presidential elections represent, according to her reasoning, a “window of opportunity” for both countries.

This lecture aired on WBUR on February 23, 2003. We are grateful to WBUR for making the recording available to EU for YOU.

Michael Mertes was a senior speechwriter and director general for social and political analyses and cultural affairs for Chancellor Helmut Kohl from 1987 to 1998. Since August 2006, he has been the State Secretary and Envoy from the State of Rhine-Westphalia to the Federal Government. He is member of the Permanent Advisory Council in the Bundesrat which is composed of the sixteen envoys from the states to the Bundesrat. Comparable with the Council of Elders of other parliaments, this board assists and advises the President and the Bundesrat Presidium. In addition, as the highest-ranking official of the Ministry for Federal, European and Media Affairs, he represents the state’s interests in Brussels and Berlin.

Charles Maier is the Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard University. His research interests include US and European international politics since World War II, early modern and modern international history, modern social and economic history, and German and Italian History. His most recent publications have focused on Mahler the composer and on alternative narratives for the modern era. His current projects include a history of the world in the twentieth century, specifically the rise and decline of territoriality as a resource for state organization in the modern era.

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Germany’s Christian Democrats are Pulled Left by David Vickrey, editor of Dialog International