IRES Celebrates 20 Years

CEU's International Relations and European Studies (IRES) Department celebrated its 20th anniversary by examining issues that affect the European “neighborhood” and issues of international security and global economy. Faculty, staff, and department alumni attended the May 9 conference in advance of CEU's Alumni Weekend.

IRES Department Head Matteo Fumagalli opened the conference and outlined the evolution of the department from its early days in Prague when the focus was only European Studies, before CEU permanently moved to Budapest. Fumagalli noted how significantly the department has expanded, now covering the wider global neighborhood, including Central and East Asia, and the Middle East and also focusing on the rise of new powers and the role of non-state actors in world politics and the global economy. 


Nick Sitter, professor in CEU's Department of Public Policy, said EU as a topic of study is a moving target. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel

Panelists Nick Sitter, professor in CEU's Department of Public Policy, and Annabelle Littoz-Monnet, associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva went into detail regarding how the discipline of international studies has developed in academia. In the 20 years since IRES was founded, interest in the EU has exploded. “In 1990 even the best-stocked university bookshops featured little more than a single shelf of books on the European community; by 2010, a full wall would no longer provide sufficient space,” Sitter noted.

Sitter said the EU as a topic of study is “a moving target,” due to its ever-changing nature. The most recent accession country, Croatia, moved the total number of EU member states to 28, with five countries on the road to membership and three potential candidate states.

“The first challenge that confronts the student of EU politics is that the organization changes at a faster pace than almost any other large polity,” Sitter wrote in a 2011 paper. “The nature of the object – the EU – has been far more widely and aggressively debated than in the case of most other polities or political units.”


Students who choose to study EU politics must also grasp a good number of theories in different areas. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel

Students who choose to study EU politics must also grasp a good number of theories in different areas, Sitter said. For example, they need background in international relations, comparative politics, political economy, political history and political sociology. Enlargement has underscored the heterogeneity of the European Union. This diversity makes it even more difficult to inclusively study the EU as a whole. “The enlargement from six to thirty-odd member and quasi-member states has driven the point home: no student of current EU politics can doubt that there are big and important differences in power, preferences, resources, institutions, policy traditions, values and ideas across the member states,” Sitter emphasized. Yet, through their work over the last 25 years, EU scholars have a better grip on the nature of the EU and its fast-changing nature and dialogue across disciplines has improved dramatically, he noted.

Discussing international relations and security, panelists Alex Astrov, associate professor at IRES , Stefano Guzzini, professor at the Danish Institute for International Studies, and Gwendolyn Sasse, reader at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford (all former or present CEU faculty), shared their thoughts on how the discipline of international relations has changed in the past two decades and the challenges it faces today. Regarding the Crimean crisis, Sasse drew the general conclusion that what’s now being offered is “clean institutional fixes,"  - quick fixes on an institutional level, instead of tackling problems with a more hands-on approach -, and stressed the need for flexibility in the EU’s approach.


Stefano Guzzini of the Danish Institute for International Studies asked whether the discipline has become too inward-looking. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel

Guzzini raised the question whether the discipline has become “too inward-looking” with the decline of  inter-paradigm debate and of peace research. The best achievement of the past 20 years is the improvement in methodology and the ensuing self-reflective nature of the IR profession, and the worst development is that the discipline is becoming increasingly self-obsessed, he summarized.

Illustrating how the IR profession evolved, Astrov described the two past generations of IRES students. “The first generation was optimistic and keen, the second came from Georgia, we showed them what we knew, then they went home, took a job in foreign policy and did the hard job.”


IRES Professor Bela Greskovits described the relationship between Eastern European and mainstream political economy as a series of miscommunication. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel

IRES Professor Bela Greskovits, posed three questions to start the debate on international political economy: Has the recession changed political economy? Should it have? What does Eastern Europe have to contribute? He described the relationship between Eastern European and mainstream political economy as a “series of miscommunication.” Dora Gyorffy, associate professor at Pazmany Peter University compared the American and British schools of political economy, and Visiting Professor Kristin Makszin discussed political economy criticism and the future of the discipline before the floor was opened the comments.

The IRES@20 conference allowed attending alumni the opportunity to see how their department and discipline has grown. Since the department's inception, some 843 MA students and 23 PhD Students have graduated from IRES and more than 40 faculty and 11 staff have worked at the department. IRES alumni can be found in 63 countries worldwide. The department currently has 50 MA students, 30 PhD students, 16 faculty and four staff. Department veterans are Professor Boldizsar Nagy (18 years), Professor Michael Merlingen (16 years), and Iren Varga, the longest-serving staff member (since February, 1997). For the full conference program, visit http://www.ceu.hu/event/2014-05-09/ires20.