Visit from UNC Chapel Hill

As part of CONTEST, professor Bob Jenkins visited the Department to talk about translatlantic security in an insecure world. The seminar was organised by the student organisations for Comparative Politics and European Studies, Kabinettet and Eurokratene. In his talk, Jenkins emphasised the security challenges facing Europe and the US, among them the Russian war on Ukraine, challenges with a growing China, climate change as a security challenge, and that the US is now coming out as an adversary (at times) rather than a partner for Europe on security issues and trade. Jenkins argued that the EU needs to step up and take a greater command in security politics, and in particular on the climate issues now that the US has reduced and changed its ambitions in both domains. The lecture generated a lot of questions from the students, and a high level of engagement. 

The importance of student exchange in an insecure world 

Through his work at UNC and the Transatlatic Master programme (TAM), professor Jenkins has brought students to the Balkans over many years, and the last few years he has also travelled with UNCE student to Brussels. During his talk, Jenkins expressed his concern that the Trump administration is cutting the budgets for European Studies, Area Studies, Language studies and mostly anything connected to transatlantic and international cooperation. In light of these developments, collaborations around exchange and research such as the CONTEST project between UNC and the Department of Comparative Politics, become even more important, and Jenkins encouraged any activity that would involve research collaboration and student exchange across the Atlantic in order to improve understanding and share knowledge.  

Bob Jenkins lecturing at the lunch seminar

Photo:

Sampol

Collaboration and exchange between the University of Bergen and UNC Chapel Hill  

Since 2023 the Department of Comparative Politics (Sampol) and UNC Chapel Hill have collaborated on student- and academic exchange through the UTFORSK-program of HK-dir (Nowegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills). The project is also a research project on "The politics of contestation in Europe and the US" (CONTEST) which is lead by professor Michaël Tatham. The goal of the project is to strengthen students' insight into political contestation, political mobilisation, and polarisation in Europe and the US, through both research collaboration and student exchange.  

Up until now, 7  Sampol-students have been on exchange at Chapel Hill, and 6 students from Chapel Hill have been on exchange at Sampol and Bergen. Next Spring Sampol will receive the first TAM master students, who will follow courses at the local MA-program. CONTEST also involves exchange at the PhD level, academic exchange and a research component on political contestation.