Dear Friends and colleagues of the Kolleg-Forschergruppe!

We are happy to welcome you to our current Newsletter Edition informing you about what is going on at the Research College “The Transformative Power of Europe”!

We are very proud to introduce you to a new format and design, which shall give you a quicker access to our contents. We hope that this fresh version allows you to follow our activities through the year even better.

Please contact us if you have any comments concerning the new Edition – we are always happy about feedback!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful time with your family and friends and hope to see you around, soon.

Best regards,

Tanja A. Börzel, Thomas Risse & the KFG-Team

The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) "The Transformative Power of Europe" would like to extend a warm welcome to its new members, who will be joining us for the current winter semester here in Berlin. Our team of fellows this year will be complemented by researchers from Canada, England, Ghana, Italy, the Netherlands and South Korea among many others. Our new KFG fellows Emanuel Adler, Tonia Bieber, Oheneba Boateng, Inken von Borzyskowski, Amanda Clayton, Maria Debre, Jason H. Han, Miguel Haubrich, Merran Hulse, Alessandra Russo and Edward Stoddard introduce themselves on our webpage. 

In a few months scholars, practitioners and students of international affairs will be making their way to the 56^th convention of the International Studies Association (ISA) to connect with colleagues from across the globe, to exchange ideas and discuss their most cutting-edge research. This year the convention, which takes place annually and routinely draws over 6000 visitors, will be held at the Hilton Riverside Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, from February 16^th- 21^st, 2015.

On July 4 and 5, 2014 students and affiliates of Professor Adrienne Héritier were gathered at a conference on the occasion of her 70th birthday and her official retirement from the European University Institute in Florence. The birthday conference under the title 'Perspectives on European Governance in Comparative Perspective: Interests, Institutions and Policy-making' aimed at encapsulating the versatility of Adrienne's scholarship as a way of thanking her for the admirable contribution she had made to the discipline of political science in general and her students in particular.

The diffusion and transfer of ideas, policies, and institutions across space is not a new phenomenon. For this reason, history forms an important dimension of the KFG’s agenda. During the KFG's second funding period, professors Wolfram Kaiser (University of Portsmouth) and Kiran Klaus Patel (Maastricht University; in 2014/15 Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor at LSE in London) join the KFG as permanent senior fellows to investigate how such processes have unfolded in the past.

The conference took place on 12-13 December 2014

Last weekend, the final of three authors’ conferences in preparation for the first Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, co-edited by KFG research directors Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, took place. While the December conference of last year had set the scene and the June conference was devoted to debating the general line of the chapters, this conference was about fine-tuning und bring the chapters together as a handbook. 

The Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (BTS), a joint endeavor of the Freie Universität Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance and the Social Science Research Center Berlin, announces its next call for applications for its full-time PhD program. All three are leading institutions in the field of international relations and EU studies. The program draws upon their faculty, research projects, facilities and services. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2015.

The following books by KFG fellows have been published lately:

"European Public Spheres. Politics Is Back", edited by Thomas Risse;

"Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations" & "Exhibiting Europe in Museums. Transnational Networks, Collections, Narratives and Representations", co-authored by Wolfram Kaiser;

"Democratic Transformation and Obstruction: EU, US and Russia in the South Caucasus" by Nelli Babayan and

"Advancing Regional Monetary Cooperation: The Case of Fragile Financial Markets" by Laurissa Mühlich.

In "European Public Spheres. Politics Is Back" leading scholars trace the emergence of a European public sphere over the last sixty years. Edited by KFG research director Thomas Risse, this book gives an overview about various aspects of the discussion on the politicization of public spheres in Europe.

Technologies have created crucial connections across borders requiring new forms of regulation. Co-authored by KFG Senior Scholar Prof. Wolfram Kaiser and Professor of History of Technology Johan W. Schot, "Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations" analyzes how experts, cartels and international organizations have written the rules for Europe since around 1850.

Co-authored by KFG Fellow Prof. Wolfram Kaiser, "Exhibiting Europe in Museums. Transnational Networks, Collections, Narratives and Representation" examines how museums of history and contemporary culture react to processes of Europeanization and globalization. The book provides fascinating insights into a fast-changing museum landscape in Europe with wider implications for cultural policy and museums in other world regions.

Written by KFG Associated Fellow Nelli Babayan, "Democratic Transformation and Obstruction: EU, US and Russia in the South Caucasus" investigates democracy promotion by the European Union and the United States of America and seeks to uncover why intensive democracy promotion has resulted in limited democratic progress.

Written by KFG Post-doctoral Fellow Laurissa Mühlich, "Advancing Regional Monetary Cooperation: The Case of Fragile Financial Markets" examines regional monetary cooperation as a strategy to enhance macroeconomic stability in developing countries and emerging markets, while seeking to reframe traditional theoretical approaches to regional monetary integration in an interdisciplinary way.

"International in Life, National in Death? Banking Nationalism on the Road to Banking Union" is the 61st KFG Working Paper by Rachel A. Epstein, Associate Professor of International Relations and European Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and Martin Rhodes, Professor and Associate Dean at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Angela Pennisi di Floristella, Karen Del Biondo, and Frank Schimmelfennig tell about their time at the KFG.