Mistakes were made? The EU's relations with Russia and Turkey in the 1990s

On 3 March 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a Dahrendorf Seminar on the European Union's relations with Russia and Turkey during the 1990s. Chaired by Dimitar Bechev of St Antony's College, Oxford, the seminar featured Ayşe Zarakol, Professor of International Relations at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with commentary from Roy Allison, Professor of Russian and Eurasian International Relations at St Antony's College. Framed around Zarakol's chapter in Rethinking the 1990s: Liberal World Order-Building in the Aftermath of the Cold War, the discussion asked what went wrong in the West's engagement with two semi-peripheral states that sought recognition within the post-Cold War liberal order but were never fully incorporated into it.

Zarakol began by arguing that the tensions shaping Russia's and Turkey's relationships with the West cannot be understood solely through the events of the 1990s. Both countries carried much longer histories of perceived exclusion, stretching back to the nineteenth century, when they were repeatedly treated as partial or aspiring members of a European-centred international order. The significance of the post-Cold War decade, she suggested, lay in its revival of these older status anxieties within a new institutional framework. Russia emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union seeking recognition within the new European security order, while Turkey had already spent decades pursuing closer integration with European institutions. Despite these different starting points, both ultimately occupied what Zarakol described as an uncomfortable halfway position: neither fully inside nor clearly outside the emerging liberal order.

Morale on the ‘home fronts’, 1914-1945: Its transnational construction and destruction

On 26 February 2026, the European Studies Centre and the Centre for Global and Imperial History welcomed Sheldon Garon, Nissan Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University, to deliver the annual lecture in European History. In a lecture entitled "Morale on the Home Front (1914–1945): Its Transnational Construction and Destruction", Garon examined how the elusive concept of "civilian morale" became one of the twentieth century's most consequential—and destructive—strategic ideas. Difficult to define yet repeatedly invoked with confidence, morale became a language through which states justified attacks on cities, food supplies and, ultimately, civilian endurance itself.

The lecture formed part of Garon's broader ERC project, The Global War on Civilians, which explores how it became accepted that victory could be pursued not only through defeating armies and navies but also by directly targeting civilian populations. Rather than treating this development as a series of separate national experiences, Garon argued for a transnational history of learning and adaptation, in which governments observed one another's practices, borrowed strategic ideas across borders and gradually constructed new kinds of "home fronts" designed both to sustain their own populations and to undermine the morale of their enemies.

Garon organised his argument around three interconnected dimensions of modern warfare: aerial bombardment, blockade and morale itself. He traced the origins of the concept to the First World War, when governments increasingly sought to monitor, measure and influence the "general mood" of civilian populations living under wartime strain. Food blockades, particularly those directed against Germany, rested on the expectation that deprivation would eventually provoke unrest, social disintegration and political collapse. At the same time, governments in Germany, France, Austria-Hungary and Britain began producing remarkably systematic reports that claimed to assess civilian morale with striking confidence. As Garon observed, these documents often resembled weather forecasts, describing morale as though it could visibly strengthen, weaken or "crack" under pressure.

Governing a multi-ethnic state: Minority rights in the early twentieth-century Baltics

On 17 February 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar on minority rights and the governance of ethnic diversity in the early twentieth-century Baltics. Chaired by Katherine Lebow, Associate Professor of Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford, the seminar featured Timo Aava, Estonia-Oxford Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, with comments from Martin Conway, Professor of Contemporary European History at Balliol College, Oxford. The discussion examined how the collapse of the Russian and Habsburg Empires and the emergence of new nation-states generated fresh approaches to governing ethnically diverse societies, focusing particularly on Estonia's interwar experiment with non-territorial minority autonomy.

Aava began by placing the Estonian experience within a wider intellectual and political context shaped by late imperial debates on constitutional reform. He argued that non-territorial autonomy was not a marginal or utopian proposal but a serious attempt to address the challenge of governing multi-ethnic societies without forcing national communities into rigid territorial units. Drawing on the work of Karl Renner and other Austro-Marxist thinkers, Aava showed how these theorists sought to separate nationhood from territory by conceiving national communities as self-governing personal associations rather than geographically defined entities. At the same time, he emphasised that Estonia did not simply import an Austrian model. Instead, these ideas were adapted through local legal traditions, debates within the Russian Empire and existing practices of communal self-government.

Greece's comeback: Restoring economic credibility after crisis

On 18 February 2026, the ESC hosted a seminar on Greece's return to international economic credibility after more than a decade of crisis. Chaired by Vasiliki Poula, DPhil candidate in International Development at St Hugh's College, Oxford, the seminar featured Alex Patelis, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Greek Prime Minister, in conversation with the economists Vicky Pryce and Peter Sanfey. Framed around Patelis's recent book on Greece's economic recovery, the discussion explored how the country moved from an era associated with bailouts, capital controls and existential doubts about euro membership to renewed market access, the restoration of investment-grade status and growing international confidence.

Patelis began by arguing that Greece's recovery rested not on a single reform or favourable external circumstance but on the design and consistent implementation of a coherent strategy. He recalled the scepticism that greeted the incoming government in 2019, both domestically and internationally. There were doubts that Greek politics could operate transparently, doubts that a centre-right administration would implement politically difficult reforms, and doubts that Greece could successfully manage its own economic programme without external supervision. Against this backdrop, Patelis presented the government's approach as a three-part strategy centred on repairing the banking system, implementing structural reforms and reshaping fiscal policy to support economic growth while maintaining budgetary discipline.

Sink or swim? The EU in a zero-sum world

On 10 February 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar on whether the European Union can adapt to an increasingly zero-sum international environment without abandoning the principles on which it was built. Chaired by Dimitar Bechev of St Antony's College, the discussion brought together Veronica Anghel of the European University Institute and Richard Youngs of the University of Warwick and Carnegie Europe to examine Europe's room for manoeuvre amid Russian aggression, an increasingly unpredictable United States and intensifying strategic competition with China. Across the panel, the central question was whether the European Union is simply reacting to mounting external pressures or beginning to develop a more purposeful strategic identity of its own.

Anghel opened by situating the discussion within a broader assessment of the risks confronting Europe. Drawing on a European University Institute survey of expert opinion, she argued that the greatest threat identified for 2026 was the possible withdrawal of American security guarantees to European allies. This concern sat alongside fears of a Russia-favourable outcome in Ukraine and the possibility of conflict over Taiwan, while also reflecting a deeper European uncertainty about the reliability of the United States as a long-term strategic partner. Together, these developments suggested that the European Union now faces a geopolitical environment fundamentally different from that of the post-Cold War period, one in which several major powers increasingly view Europe as something to be constrained, divided or marginalised.

Organising across the Imperial and global space: Women's organisations and networks at the end of the French Empire

On 3 February 2026, the European Studies Centre welcomed Anna Nasser, Deakin Fellow in French Studies at St Antony's College, to present a seminar entitled "Organising across the Imperial and Global Space: Women's Organisations and Networks at the End of the French Empire." With comments from Natalya Vince, Associate Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, the seminar explored how women's organisations operated across imperial, national and international settings from the end of the Second World War to the late 1950s, focusing particularly on French West Africa. Rather than treating empire and internationalism as separate arenas, Nasser examined the ways in which women navigated—and helped reshape—the political spaces that connected them.

Nasser centred her analysis on two organisations whose contrasting trajectories illuminate different political visions of the late colonial period. The first, the Association des Femmes de l'Union Française (AFUF), was presented as a broadly liberal and pro-imperial organisation that sought to establish a formal organisational presence across the French Union. The second, the Union des Femmes Françaises (UFF), operated within communist and anti-colonial circles, relying less on permanent institutional structures than on wider political relationships and activist networks. Taken together, these cases demonstrated that women's organisations functioned not simply as voluntary associations but also as practical infrastructures through which imperial and international activism was organised.

When elections divide: Public reactions to electoral results in Spain

On 27 January 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar on democratic consent and electoral defeat in contemporary Spain. Chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies Centre, the seminar featured Ignacio Jurado, ESC Visiting Fellow at the European Studies Centre and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Goods and Policies of the Spanish National Research Council. Jurado presented early findings from a wider research project examining how citizens respond when their preferred side loses an election, and what those responses reveal about the resilience of democratic institutions.

Jurado began by arguing that recent debates on democratic backsliding have focused overwhelmingly on winners: leaders who gain office through elections before gradually weakening democratic constraints from within. While acknowledging the importance of this literature, he suggested that democracy also depends fundamentally on the behaviour of losers. Democratic systems, he argued, rest on a simple but fragile expectation: citizens participate in free and fair elections, some lose, others win, and those who lose nevertheless continue to recognise the authority of the resulting government. Democratic consent, in this sense, is not simply agreement with the rules of the game but an ongoing willingness to accept political outcomes one would have preferred to avoid.

This perspective led Jurado to distinguish his project from the classic winner-loser literature in political science. Previous research has consistently shown that electoral losers report lower satisfaction with democracy, weaker trust in political institutions and more negative political attitudes. Yet, he argued, these indicators do not necessarily measure democratic consent itself. Citizens may be disappointed by an electoral outcome while fully accepting its legitimacy. The more significant question is whether defeat in highly polarised political environments begins to undermine acceptance of the electoral process, confidence in the fairness of democratic institutions and recognition of the winning side's legitimate right to govern.