FOCUS ON FACULTY:
Faculty Feature: Elliot Posner, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Q. Please tell us a bit about your education and career path that led you to Case Western Reserve University.
I did not follow a traditional career path. After graduating from Brown University in 1987, I joined the Peace Corps and served as an English and Math teacher to eighth and ninth graders in a rural village in the north of Botswana. After my tour, I entered the MA program at The Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, where I focused on the political economy of Sub-Saharan Africa. Before starting a Ph.D. program at University of California, Berkeley, I spent three years in the private sector in Mexico City, running a subsidiary of a Canadian firm. At Berkeley, I earned a doctorate in political science with a specialization in international political economy. Before arriving at Case Western Reserve, I was an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University where I had a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and at the Elliott School of International Affairs.
Q. You are teaching International Non-Governmental Organizations for the Mandel Center. Tell us a bit about the course and why you enjoy teaching it.
This is my first semester teaching MAND 427, International Non-Governmental Organizations. I designed the course to assist students interested in careers in the sector to think about NGOs in the big picture of contemporary global politics. This means first understanding a thing or two about how various schools of thought view international politics and then examining key questions about INGOs - from what they actually do, to how they fit into transnational advocacy networks, to why they achieve (or fail to achieve) their goals. We're looking at the efforts to create rights for children born of war, linkages between insurgencies in Mexico and Nigeria and INGOs from wealthy countries, and the campaigns to eliminate the debt of the world's poorest countries and reshape international property rights governing AIDS medicines. I am thoroughly enjoying my class this semester. The students defy characterization. In addition to the Mandel Center students, many others are in programs at the other professional schools. They represent countries from across the globe and have a wide range of professional and educational backgrounds. Let's just say I'm very impressed.
Q. Tell us how you came to write your recent book, The Origins of Europe's New Stock Markets and what it's about.
At the most abstract level, The Origins of Europe's New Stock Markets addresses some of the fundamental questions about contemporary global politics. For instance, at the millennium's turn, who is shaping the global rules of the game and how do they do it? The twist in my book is that over 15 years relatively low-level civil servants working for the European Union's main bureaucracy did more to create new stock markets than the usual suspects for these kinds of reforms – national governments and financiers. It turns out that seemingly unrelated politics tied to the EU's development was the main filter through which globalization and classic interstate relations played out. Incidentally, even though the protagonists in Origins are international civil servants working for the Brussels bureaucracy, and the book focuses on their role in creating new capital markets, its main themes are some of the same ones that I cover in my course.
Q. What has been some of your favorite research that you've done over the years and why?
In conducting research for my book, I’ve had the good fortune of spending a lot of time in the major financial capitals of Europe, where I conducted fascinating interviews with policymakers, bureaucrats, public advocates and financiers. I am now seeking ways to bridge my new interests in the EU with my old ones in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Q. Who have been some influential scholars in your life?
Albert Hirschman, Karl Polanyi, John Maynard Ruggie and Ernst Haas.
Q. What other interests, hobbies, etc do you try to make time for?
I am married to Gillian Weiss, an early modernist in the Department of History. Between our two careers and our two-and-half-year old son, Oliver, I manage to stay out of trouble.