The Study of Europe in the United States: The Makins Report


Written especially for the ECSA Review Vol. XII, No. 1 (Winter 1999), pp.2-5.

Three senior Europeanists discuss the field of European (Union) studies in the United States.


Christopher J. Makins

THE REPORT The Study of Europe in the United States was primarily concerned with the programs of its two sponsors: the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States. The report's recommendations were therefore not directly, nor principally, addressed to practitioners of the study of the European Union or to the membership of the European Community Studies Association (ECSA). But, not surprisingly, the analysis in the report contained several important implications for practitioners. I will try to identify the most important of these.

While recognizing the absence of reliable and comprehensive data, the report paints a picture of a field that is in better health than many might think or than some recent trends might lead one to suppose. Despite clear evidence that some sources of funding for the study of Europe have been declining, there remains a high level (and high quality) of activity in the field at all stages of the academic cycle and, if anything, the study of European integration broadly understood may be prospering more than the field as a whole. The impressive growth of ECSA and the vitality of its conferences are good testimony to these impressions.

This situation is, admittedly, in some contrast with that of the mid- to late 1980s and no doubt owes much to the increased interest in European developments following the end of the Cold War and the re-launching of progress towards European integration. Since what goes up can turn and go down, it would be wrong to derive too much satisfaction from this trend. But with the advent of both the Economic and Monetary Union and the enlargement of the European Union to the east, there seems no reason to suppose that the number of questions of importance and interest to researchers and policy makers alike relating to European integration is going to diminish any time soon.

There are no doubt clouds on the horizon. My report to the GMF and the Delegation described these in some detail as they concern the decline of language learning in this country, the continuing divisions within the academy on Cold War lines, developments within the disciplines traditionally most associated with "European studies," and a tendency in some quarters to define European Union studies in too narrow, and Brussels-centered, a way. And even with the welcome infusion of money represented by the EU's initiative to designate ten European Union Centers at universities and colleges around the country, there are no doubt still unsatisfied and compelling needs for additional financial support for the field.

Against this background, what are the lessons of my study, and the challenges implicit in it, for practitioners? Five in particular come to mind.

First, practitioners of European integration studies need to make their contribution to breaking down some of the barriers to the field's healthy development that exist within the academy. The most obvious are those that remain from the Cold War and that distinguish between Western European and Central, Eastern European and Russian studies. With the next enlargement of the EU well on this side of the horizon and the enlargement of NATO already begun, there is no good reason, although there may be much compelling bureaucratic logic, for these divisions to continue. But there is also a case for taking a broader view of what is included under the term "European integration." There are already moves afoot among some scholars to broaden the definition of the institutional and political processes that come within the purview of European Union studies by focusing less exclusively on the Union's institutions and directing greater attention to the interactions among national (and indeed regional) and supranational institutions, communities and policies. These changes need to be encouraged both by responsible faculty and administrators within universities and colleges and by external funders.

Second, there is the challenge of interdisciplinarity. The funding stringency at a number of institutions, combined with internal developments within some departments, has tended to result in the shrinking of the institutional space available for interdisciplinary work. Indeed some go so far as to declare the attempt to promote greater interdisciplinarity as a failure from which we should move on. At the same time, there has been a significant diffusion of the study of Europe, including European integration, beyond the core disciplines normally associated with it. Business schools are only the most common of places to witness this diffusion, which also encompasses law schools, departments of communications and planning, and others.

If ever there were a phenomenon of which the full understanding and analysis requires an interdisciplinary approach, European integration would seem to be it. The question is how to achieve this in the current situation within the academy. My report attempted to catalogue the tensions both within and between disciplines that have helped engender the unfortunate situation that has developed. But this is, par excellence, an area in which the patients must heal themselves; there is little that can be done by external funders, except perhaps wealthy individuals who can provide for (and in a number of institutions have generously done so) inter-disciplinary centers focused on Europe. This may be an issue on which the new European Union Centers can give a useful lead. But it is also one on which individual scholars need to make their voices heard within their own institutions and to which administrators need to devote attention in order to offset the particularism of departments.

Third, there is the vexed question of policy relevance. This may be less of a problem in the area of European integration studies than that of the study of Europe more generally, but it is a problem nonetheless. Raising this subject does not imply a wish to make all scholarly enquiry in this area directly relevant to public policy debates. There will always be a place for fundamental and theoretical research on these issues. But the gap between the academic mainstream and those concerned with the discussion of public policy has grown wider in recent years. As a consequence possibilities for mutual enrichment of those engaged on the two sides of the divide are being foregone. For sure, the world of public policy debate could benefit from the more rigorous insights gained by scholars and, though the point may be less obvious, I believe that much scholarship and many scholars would be enriched by a more regular and serious dialogue with those, not only in governments, but also in the corporate and NGO worlds, wrestling with the practical issues of policy.

Again, the question is how to achieve this goal. Here, too, part of the responsibility rests with funders to encourage such interchange. But academic institutions and scholars could take more initiative on their side by seeking to involve government and corporate policy makers and policy analysts from think tanks and research institutes more in their colloquia and workshops and by looking for opportunities to become engaged themselves outside the walls of the academy. This recommendation admittedly flies in the face of the oft-cited and indisputable pressures from within departments, especially on younger scholars, to stick to their disciplinary lasts and to privilege theoretically interesting work over that which may have more practical application. But there are several examples, noted in the report, of institutions both within and without the academy that have led the way in building bridges between academic research and policy analysis and debate. One can only hope that there will be more people on both sides courageous enough to take up these cudgels.

Fourth, there are particular challenges arising out of the establishment of the ten European Union Centers. The first of these is obviously to find ways to make this initiative more than the sum of its parts and, in particular, to ensure that its benefits are disseminated as widely as possible, including to those outside the immediate vicinity of the centers themselves. The Internet offers a useful tool for this purpose and the idea of creating a network of Web sites, linked presumably to ECSA's site, as part of the initiative has great potential. The Council for European Studies should also be played into this picture in view of its broader interest in all aspects of the study of Europe.

A second challenge related to the centers is sustainability. Many of the 70 or so proposals for the Centers incorporated admirable ideas about ways to ensure that they would remain viable even after the presumed three-year term of the EU funding ends. Implementing these ideas is of the highest importance. This task will require the administrations of the institutions in question to put their weight firmly behind the Centers in their fundraising efforts. It would, to say the least, be highly unfortunate if after three years the new Network were to become a shadow of itself.

Fifth, and most intangibly, there is the concern expressed to me by a number of scholars during the research for my report that the area of European integration studies has suffered from inadequate quality control, in large measure because of the sudden vogue of interest in the EU since 1989. This concern is almost impossible to document with any conviction, but the very fact that it exists is significant. This again is an area in which individual scholars and departments must be primarily responsible for monitoring the field. But there should be no doubt that its long term health is very much dependent on maintaining a reputation for both quality and relevance. ECSA as an institution should be able to make its voice heard on the right side of this debate.

A somewhat related point derives from the, rather surprising, evidence generated by my research of the steady increase in recent years in the number of Ph.D.s awarded in the core disciplines of "European studies" with dissertations on European topics. Given the, at best, mixed state of the academic job market during this period, this evidence leaves the observer with an uneasy feeling. (It is, incidentally, of a piece with recent data from the National Academy of Sciences that suggest the overproduction of Ph.D.s in the life sciences.) Such information, of course, begs the rarely asked and answered question, "How much is enough?," and discussion of the criteria for determining this, on which my report attempted to offer some suggestions.

On this issue, as on all the others mentioned earlier, ECSA has a chance to take a lead in its field (as the Council for European Studies has in its broader universe, and was encouraged to do in my report) by providing a venue and stimulus for discussion of the needs of the academy, the international community of scholars, and the societies of the Atlantic world for U.S. scholarship on Europe. The answers are not obvious, but they are certainly important. ECSA would render valuable service by focusing wider attention on these important questions.

Christopher J. Makins is Senior Advisor to the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC.


Donald Hancock

CHRISTOPHER J. MAKINS' The Study of Europe in the United States attests to the continued vitality of the study of Europe in American academe while documenting important changes in the field (among them, increased research on the Europe Union). Makins also soberly emphasizes the potentially debilitating tension between epistemological and methodological expectations on the part of various disciplines (notably Economics, Political Science, and Sociology) and area studies (including in-depth country and regional expertise).

That the study of Europe nonetheless remains relevant in the face of oftentimes faddish disciplinary orthodoxy is due not only to continued subvention in the form of Title VI funding and the recent creation of ten European Union Centers throughout the country, but also to activities sponsored by professional associations not cited in the Makins report (nor explicitly surveyed in my own earlier survey of European studies on behalf of the German Marshall Fund). I am referring to the constructive role of country and regional organizations such as the German Studies Association (GSA), the Conference Group on German Politics, the British Politics Group, the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, and other organizations which sponsor annual conferences, provide (in some cases) a modicum of research support, publish quality newsletters and/or journals, and maintain their own Web sites. Alongside the ECSA and the Council for European Studies, these associations constitute vital components of the field. The GSA (whose membership rivals that of the ECSA) is especially noteworthy for convening an interactive mix of social scientists and humanists from both sides of the Atlantic at its annual meetings. Its energetic and effective leadership constitutes a veritable model for promoting the continued importance of European studies as a whole.

A longer view of the field suggests simultaneous imperatives of revival, continuity, and innovation. A promising illustration of the former would be renewed emphasis on an activity associated with the CES during the halcyon years of more extensive funding-namely, intense training workshops involving established Europeanists and advanced graduate students. A particularly noteworthy example was an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the CES at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1970s which brought together American and European specialists on Scandinavian politics and society and students pursuing research on countries in the region. The workshop resulted not only in substantive information exchange among its participants but also personal contacts that led to placement offers benefiting at least some of the participants.

Several examples of commendable continuity come readily to mind. One is continued funding by the CES and other agencies for trans-Atlantic research groups whose collaborative research results in tangible publications. Such activities can usefully underscore many of the prescriptive features of the Makins report, including an expanded linkage between traditional forms of scholarship and better understanding of contemporary public policy issues.

An additional imperative-common to European studies as well as other area study programs-is community outreach. The Title VI program and the Washington Delegation of the European Commission have commendably encouraged the dissemination of enhanced understanding of other cultures and societies among teachers, business people, and other members of the informed public, but academic institutions and individual scholars can do more.

Innovation can take many forms, including a willingness by Europeanists in the social sciences to support efforts by their colleagues in modern foreign language departments to transcend their disciplines' traditional focus on language and literature to create broadly based interdisciplinary programs designed to train students seeking careers in business or public service (rather than positions as foreign language teachers). Examples include the transformation of departments of Germanic Languages into departments of German Studies at Stanford University and The University of Texas at Austin and the establishment of interdisciplinary undergraduate majors in French and European Studies and German and European Studies at Vanderbilt.

These objectives-along with the more detailed recommendations contained in the Makins report-can be realized only through sustained commitment to the field among Europeanists and a confluence of institutional and personal leadership and support.

Donald Hancock is Director of the Center for European Studies at Vanderbilt University.


Glenda G. Rosenthal

THE MAKINS REPORT ON the study of Europe in the United States has a lineage of almost 30 years, going back to Kohl and Blackmer's July 1969 "Western European Studies in American Universities." Donald Hancock in 1989, Sidney Tarrow in 1993 and Peter Hall in 1996 each wrote thoughtful and provocative reports on the same subject, commissioned by the German Marshall Fund in the case of the Hancock Report, and by the Social Science Research Council in the case of the Tarrow and Hall Reports. Makins, however, is the first to have addressed head on European Union studies as the genuine sub-field that it has become in the United States. His report is also the first widely published document on European studies to have been sponsored in part by the European Commission's Delegation in the United States along with the German Marshall Fund.

Evaluation and critiques of academic disciplines by those heavily involved in their funding is also nothing new, of course, and I have no quarrel with it. Indeed, it would be both churlish and foolish of me to look a gift horse in the mouth. Agenda setting, however, is quite another story. Since the early postwar years when, largely as a result of Ford Foundation and, a little later, federal government encouragement, "area studies" came into being, the parameters of the study of Europe have been extensively defined by the principal funding agencies. This puts the scholar in the kind of double bind that Makins underscores when he calls for the breaking down of barriers that exist within the academy. How does one break down the barriers between Western European studies on the one hand and Central, Eastern European and Russian studies on the other, when approximately half one's external funding comes from the U.S. Department of Education, which continues vigorously to maintain such barriers, and the other half comes from the European Union, which penalizes such distinctions when it makes its monetary awards? Similarly, Makins admits that younger scholars especially are subject to unbearable pressures from within departments to "privilege theoretically interesting work over that which may have more practical application," but the only solution he offers is the sudden appearance of more people "...courageous enough to take up these cudgels." I submit that it takes more than courage to buck deep-rooted and widely held academic practice. One solution to this dilemma is perhaps the creation of more fully fledged Departments of European Studies in American universities. Such departments have existed for many years in numbers of British universities without having destroyed the fabric and quality of British scholarship. Undoubtedly there would be resistance from the traditional academic departments, who would bleat about lack of theoretical relevance and absence of quality control, whatever that may mean, but such measures could be undertaken gradually with the aid of joint appointments. There is now no lack of highly respected, senior, tenured scholars of modern Europe to push for the creation of such departments.

Interdisciplinary study is also a term which has circulated among scholars and funders alike for decades. What on earth does interdisciplinary mean? If it means pairs or groups of scholars each examining the same questions from their own disciplinary points of view and then pooling the results, all well and good. If interdisciplinary study and teaching is understood to be something more than the sum of its parts, I think we are chasing shadows. The search for such a thing among the traditional disciplines cannot be legislated or brought into being by giving dollars. It requires scholars with genuine interests in the concepts and methodologies of other disciplines and the broad-mindedness and openness that only a tiny minority have the talent, energy and time to apply. I also doubt that it will be brought into being, any more than policy relevant scholarship will be brought into being, by seating scholars, corporate, government and NGO officials round the same conference, lunch or dinner table and enjoining them to debate.

I want to devote the remaining space allowed to the new European Union Centers. First, I welcome them with enthusiasm and gratitude. It has taken a very long time for the EU to recognize that important and extensive study of European integration and EC/EU governance and policies has been conducted in the United States since the very beginnings of the European Communities themselves. For decades, European scholars have looked to the U.S. for leadership, ideas and conceptual tools in this field of study. This, of course, is not to minimize the very valuable work that has been done and continues to be done in Europe itself, particularly during the rather fallow periods of EC scholarship here in the 1970s and 1980s. But, we should also not minimize the fact that European scholars participate in droves in the ECSA biennial conferences largely because no comparable meeting of EU studies specialists exists elsewhere. Understandably the European institutions have taken care of their home turf first. Widescale support here of EU studies has been a very long time in coming and is, therefore, all the more welcome. But, I am worried about these EU Centers, not so much for reasons of sustainability and lack of quality control, as suggested by Makins. There is far too much at stake for scholars of the EU to abandon ship just at a time when major changes are and will be taking place in its membership, governance and policies. I am sure we can rely on each other to persuade our universities and our colleagues that what we do is meaningful and our funders that we are spending their money wisely and responsibly.

There is no easy answer and the most fashionable answer of the moment-electronics, more electronics, ever more electronics-is most definitely not my preferred remedy. Over the past year, there has been a huge increase in Web sites, list serves, e-mail correspondence and data bases. We are already facing a lot of overlap and duplication: links take one in ever increasing circles, more and more time is spent in front of screens, students are obliged to be ever more "wired." Heaven forbid if we don't put our newsletters, research papers, classroom assignments, syllabi, grades, announcement of events, summons to meetings, not to mention general chit-chat on line. Perhaps we will be dubbed slow and old-fashioned. Pity the poor scholar whose software is not of the newest and, even worse, who has to seek help in downloading attachments. Far be it from me to minimize the way in which the Internet and e-mail have revolutionized my research, teaching and professional (not to mention personal) communication in the last two or three years. But what is the point in linking my Institute's Web site to our Consortium's Web site, which is linked in turn to all other European studies Web sites, which are then linked to the Network of European Union Centers Web site? Maybe others are more disciplined than I am, but I am currently suffering from acute electronic indigestion.

Those of us involved in the study of Europe (I like the distinction Makins draws between the study of Europe and European studies) have, I contend, leaned over backwards for years to be responsive to fashions and fads in the academic disciplines, strictures and constraints imposed by university administrations, and the priorities of major funders in order to obtain adequate monetary support and scholarly recognition. Although it is incumbent on us to listen to constructive criticism, we should stop being so insecure and reactive and move ahead confidently with our work in the knowledge that, as practitioners of the study of the European Union, we have carved out for ourselves a strong and healthy field of scholarship and a dynamic professional organization to represent our interests.

Glenda G. Rosenthal is Director of the Institute on Western Europe at Columbia University and Co-Director of the European Union Center of New York.

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