Friday February 26, 2021
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Online Zoom Meeting
Dear Colleagues:
Greetings, and I hope that you and yours are well during this virus-threatened time.
Social distancing continues on campus and the “Friday Lunch” will remain an online event through the semester. That doesn’t seem to be preventing good talks and discussions. This week we shift our focus from crises of U.S. politics and government to the other side of the Atlantic.
In June of 2016, voters in the United Kingdom endorsed, by 52% to 48%, exiting the European Union. I doubt many people understood that the terms of British exit wouldn’t be determined, so “Brexit” would not be implemented, for another three-and-a-half years, or that two British governments would fall as a result (first after the vote, second after failure to negotiate terms).
It turns out that Breaking Up Is Hard to Do. Even when terms are somewhat agreed, a lot remains to be worked out (as in joint custody after a divorce) and the aftermath involves lots of adjustments. In the case of Brexit there is an immense range of concerns. How many companies will shift operations out of the U.K. – and will any move in? How will the Northern Ireland agreement, which allows free transport across the Irish border, work out (there is already a dispute about vaccines that the EU wants to stay in the EU being diverted to the U.K. through Northern Ireland). What will be done about bottlenecks for trade in both directions due to the new borders? How will regulations in the U.K., such as workers’ rights, be changed? How will Value Added Taxes on traded goods be imposed? What will happen to the over three million EU citizens who had been living, without legal issues, in the U.K.? Never mind more modest issues like how Brexit will affect recruitment of European footballers into the Premier League.
Those are just some of the policy issues, but there are political stakes as well. How will Great Britain’s departure change decision-making within the EU? For example, will it make Franco-German leadership easier or more difficult? It changes the balance between more-economically-developed and less-developed members; will that matter? The EU on some issues, such as versions of financial regulation, has become a peer with the United States; how will the City of London’s exit shape the balance of negotiating or regulatory power? And with Great Britain gone, what does that mean for the prospects of an independent EU foreign and defense policy?
These are far too many questions for anyone to try to address in one lunchtime discussion. Yet we could hardly ask a better person than Professor Elliot Posner, who has written two books and many articles related to the EU and teaches our course on Politics of the European Union. Please join us as he discusses what seems to him most important, and uncertain, about Europe and Great Britain now that Brexit finally happened.
Signing In
This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.
If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYsfumprjstGNIfOXpovUGCn3ZiPaEGQbub
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Elliot Posner’s research focuses on the politics of finance. Asking questions about the internal sources of the European Union’s external influence, the changing terms of transatlantic regulatory bargains, Europe’s culpability in the great financial crisis and the long-term effects of transnational voluntary standards, his publications engage scholarly debates about cooperation, institutions, market formation and regulatory power.
Elliot Posner teaches courses on international relations, the international political economy, finance, the European Union, and international non-governmental organizations. Before earning a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, he received degrees from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University (M.A.) and Brown University (B.A.). He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana, where he taught English and math to eighth and ninth graders. He oversees the Wellman Hill Political Science Internship Grants Program.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
March 5: Effects of the Pandemic on Children’s Resilience and Vulnerability. With Sandra Russ, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor and Louis D. Beaumont University Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences.
March 12: Dictatorship by Degrees: Xi Jinping in China. With Steven P. Feldman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in Business Ethics.
March 19: What’s the Problem With Big Tech? With Anat Alon-Beck, J.D., Assistant Professor of Law.
March 26: TBA
April 2: Student Debt: What Are the Problems? For Whom? And What Could Be Done? With Richard Kazis, Senior Consultant, MDRC, Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, and Board Chair of The Institute for College Access and Services.
April 9: Healthcare, Public Health, and Population Health. With Scott Frank, MD, Associate Professor and Director of Public Health Initiatives, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences.
April 16: Dropping the Pilot? Assessing Angela Merkel’s Chancellorship. With Kenneth F. Ledford, Ph.D., Chair, Department of History.
April 23: Depression’s Past and Future. With Jonathan Sadowsky, Ph.D., Theodore J. Castele Professor of History.
April 30: The Republican Party and Demographic Change. With Girma Parris, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science.
May 7: Defending Disability Insurance. With Kathy Ruffing, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. |
