Workshop: Endogenous Institutions
and Political Conflict

May 9-10, 2008
Harris Seminar Room, 119 Moses Hall

The UC Berkeley Positive Political Theory group will host a two-day workshop on Endogenous Institutions and Political Conflict on the Berkeley campus. This workshop brings together a group of scholars who share related interests on institutions. Papers will be presented on a wide variety of topics, including civil wars, authority, war and collective action, polarization, inefficient states and democracy. For the workshop schedule, please click here. Papers will be posted as they come in and can be found here.

Symposium: China Summer Institute

June 27-July 1, 2008
Dalian, China

The Institute of Governmental Studies, Center on Institutions and Governance at UC Berkeley, the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the School of Economics and Management  at Tsinghua University and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business are jointly organizing an international workshop to create a network of top level China scholars, both junior and senior in order to enhance economic and institutional research on China. The workshop will bring together about 30 participants for one week.

The workshop intends to regroup the best scholars working on China in China, the United States and Europe. Each day at the symposium there will be a half day of seminar presentations by senior and junior scholars and the rest of the day will be free to allow scholars to interact and engage in joint research projects.

To download a preliminary program for this symposium, click here.

California-EU Regulatory Cooperation Project Workshop

February 22-23, 2008
Faculty Club, Seaborg Room
audio files of the conference are now available

The Center on Institutions and Governance has organized an innovative scholarly task force that explores the relationship between the regulatory policies of California and the European Union. Both the EU at the global level and California at the national level have emerged as regulatory policy leaders. This project promotes additional opportunities for regulatory cooperation, learning, and emulation between California and the EU. It also provides opportunities for interaction among academics, activists, business managers and policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The California-EU Regulatory Cooperation Project has been made possible thanks to a German Marshall Fund grant.

For more information on the project, see this overview.

For a workshop program, click here.

To access all papers and abstracts discussed at the workshop, click here.

For a Word document list of participants and abstracts of the papers that have been presented, click here.

John Bruton

California and the European Union:
An Emerging Partnership

Ambassador John Bruton
Head of Delegation of the European Commission in the United States

Wednesday, February 13, 10:30 a.m.
IGS Library, 109 Moses Hall

Ambassador Bruton will speak about how a bi-directional partnership between the EU and California is evolving and what chances there are for future regulatory cooperation, learning, and emulation between them. California has been a regulatory trendsetter at the national and international levels. Recently the European Union has become a global regulatory leader, while California has become both a launching pad for American versions of European regulation and an innovator that influences Europe.

EU-California Regulatory
Cooperation Project Book Presentations

Don't miss two seminars by authors associated with the EU-California Regulatory Cooperation Project and the Center for Institutions and Governance:

Chris Ansell

David Vogel

What's the Beef? The Contested Governance of European Food Safety (Politics, Science and Environment)"

By Chris Ansell, Associate Professor of Political Science , UC Berkeley and
David Vogel, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
January 25, 2008, 4:30 p.m.
Harris Seminar Room,
119 Moses Hall

A series of food-related crises -- most notably mad cow disease in Britain, farmer protests in France against American hormone-treated beef, and the European Union's banning of genetically modified food -- has turned the regulation of food safety in Europe into a crucible for issues of institutional trust, legitimacy, and effectiveness. What's the Beef? examines European food safety regulation at the national, European, and international levels as a case of "contested governance" -- a syndrome of policymaking and political dispute in which not only policy outcomes but also the fundamental legitimacy of existing institutional arrangements are challenged.

Mark Schapiro

"Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power"

By Mark Schapiro, Editorial Director, Center for Investigative Journalism
November 28, 2007, 4 p.m.
Harris Seminar Room, 119 Moses Hall

Mark Schapiro's new book investigates how corporations intent on thwarting stricter environmental and health guidelines here in the U.S. are forced to meet new demands by the European Union to improve their products. The resulting global economic power shift places Brussels, not Washington, in the driver's seat.

Welcome Visiting Scholars

CIG would like to welcome our visiting scholars Arlene Blum and Ian Clark (arriving January, 2008). To contact them and find out more about their research initiatives, go to the About CIG page.

Mr. Clark was awarded one of ten fellowships under the 2008 EU Fellowships Program, which funds stays at select universities in the U.S., Europe and Asia for EU officials focusing on Transatlantic relations.

Politics and Policy in Highly Institutionalized Environments

The Interface between Weakly and Highly Institutionalized Environments

The Center will host conferences this academic year on topics that span CIG's research. CIG also organizes the Positive Political Theory Seminar and the Comparative Economics Seminar, which provide a venue for researchers working in these areas to present their work. The Center also hosts the website VoteWorld which provides researchers access voting records from national legislatures, the United Nations, the European Parliament, and other international organizations.

The Center is under the leadership of Professor Robert Powell and Program Director Heddy Riss.