The Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) and Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE) are pleased to announce new leadership effective July 1, 2016. Allen Hicken, associate professor of political science, will lead the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies as interim director and Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of Emerging Democracies in 2016-17, while a nationwide search for a new director is conducted. Geneviève Zubrzycki, associate professor of sociology, has been appointed as director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, which includes the Center for European Studies; Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; and Copernicus Program in Polish Studies. Pauline Jones Luong, director of the International Institute, where WCED and WCEE are housed, says, “Professor Hicken and Professor Zubrzycki are both outstanding scholars who have the ability to articulate and execute a vision for a major interdisciplinary research center. I am grateful for their leadership as WCED expands its global reach and WCEE moves into the next phase of its development.”

Allen Hicken studies political institutions and political economy in developing countries. His primary focus has been on political parties and party systems in developing democracies and their role in policy making. He is an expert on Southeast Asia, where he has worked in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. Professor Hicken is the author of Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2009), the editor of Politics of Modern Southeast Asia: Critical Issues in Modern Politics (Rutledge, 2009), and coeditor of Party and Party System Institutionalization in Asia (Cambridge, 2015). Previously he served as director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, which is also part of the U-M International Institute.

Geneviève Zubrzycki examines politics and religion, nationalism, as well as national mythology and the politics of commemorations. Her book, The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland (University of Chicago Press, 2006) received a number of awards and was recently published in Polish (Nomos, 2014). She is also the author of Beheading the Saint: Nationalism, Religion and Secularism in Quebec (University of Chicago Press, Nov. 2016) and the editor of National Matters: Culture, Materiality and Nationalism, forthcoming in June 2017 from Stanford University Press. Professor Zubrzycki is a long-time faculty associate and former director of the Copernicus Program in Polish Studies and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

WCEE is also happy to welcome Tatjana Aleksić, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and comparative literature, as the new associate director. Professor Aleksić, an expert on contemporary Balkan literature and literary theory, will be responsible for curriculum and pedagogy at WCEE.

The appointments of Hicken, Zubrzycki, and Aleksić reinforce the commitment of the University and the International Institute to deep understanding of global cultures, political systems, and people. Learn more about the Weiser Centers at ii.umich.edu/wcee and ii.umich.edu/wced.


The Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) combines academics with practical applications, promoting scholarship to better understand the conditions and policies that foster the transition from autocratic rule to democratic governance, past and present. It also educates new generations of practitioners who can apply their learning and experience to help extend democratic freedoms. Named in honor of Ronald and Eileen Weiser and inspired by their time in Slovakia during Ambassador Weiser’s service as U.S. ambassador from 2001-04, WCED began operations in September 2008. For more information, visit ii.umich.edu/wced.

The Ronald and Eileen Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE) supports faculty and student research, teaching, collaboration, and public engagement in studying the institutions, cultures, and histories of these regions. WCEE is housed in the University of Michigan International Institute with the Center for European Studies (CES); the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES); the Copernicus Program in Polish Studies (CPPS); the Islamic Studies Program (ISP); and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED). Named in honor of Ronald and Eileen Weiser and inspired by their time in Slovakia during Ambassador Weiser’s service as U.S. ambassador from 2001-04, WCEE began operations in September 2008. For more information, visit ii.umich.edu/wcee.

###

Contact: Rachel Brichta
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
Phone: 734.764.0351
E-mail: weisercenter@umich.edu