Vienna Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda
34 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsAt this pivotal moment for Europe and the liberal democratic order, this podcast series from The Institute For Human Sciences explores the undercurrents, tensions and dilemmas that the continent is facing and will will face in the near term. In conversation with leading figures in the field, civil society pioneer Ivan Vejvoda is your guide to the diverse and complex preoccupations of an uncertain time.
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Episodes
Episode 31: Reinventing Democracy with Ieva Česnulaitytė
January 10, 2024 09:00 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBIn this episode of the Vienna Coffee House Conversations, Ivan Vejvoda hosts Ieva Česnulaitytė, Europe's Futures Fellow of the IWM and ERSTE Foundation, for a discussion of current issues facing the world's democracies. They examine the declining trust in democratic institutions, the rise of populism, and increasing political polarization. Česnulaitytė brings her background in democratic innovation to talk about the role of citizens' assemblies and participatory governance in addressing thes...
Episode 30: Navigating Political Currents - The State of Democracy in the EU with Alberto Alemanno
December 20, 2023 09:00 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MBIn this episode of the Vienna Coffeehouse Conversations, host Ivan Vejvoda engages with Alberto Alemanno, a leading voice on Europe's democratization. The discussion focuses on the state of democracy in Europe and the European Union, emphasizing the rise of far-right parties and the challenges of upcoming elections, including the 2024 European Parliamentary elections. Alemanno provides insights into electoral trends, the role of conservative parties, and the narrative of a Europe of nations....
Episode 29: Facing the Past, Building the Future - Culture and cooperation in the Western Balkans with Vladimir Arsenijevic
December 06, 2023 09:00 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBIn this episode of Vienna Coffeehouse Conversations, host Ivan Vejvoda welcomes IWM and ERSTE Foundation's Europe's Futures Fellow Vladimir Arsenijević for an insightful dialogue on the cultural and political landscape of post-Yugoslav Europe. The conversation delves into Arsenijević’s multifaceted role as a writer, cultural worker, and engaged intellectual. It covers the challenges of nationalism, the importance of regional cooperation, Serbia's complex relationship with Russia and the Euro...
Episode 28: Decoding Russia's Future with Kadri Liik
November 22, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBIn this episode of Vienna Coffeehouse Conversations Ivan Vejvoda hosts IWM and ECFR fellow Kadri Liik for an urgent and pressing discussion of Russia's geopolitical climate as influenced by its historical trajectory and the evolving preoccupations of President Putin. The conversation navigates Russia's internal political dynamics, the country's evolving relationship with the West, and its position on global matters, especially in light of the ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Liik’s pe...
Episode 27: Northern Ireland's Uncertain Peace with Katy Hayward
November 08, 2023 09:00 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBTwenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, this episode sees Ivan Vejvoda engage in an enlightening conversation with Queen's University Belfast's Katy Hayward as they examine the fragile stability and uncertain future status of the region in the wake of Brexit's destabilizing impact. Hayward provides insight into Northern Ireland's changing demographics, the sporadic functioning of the power-sharing government, declining trust between comm...
Serbia and Kosovo at a Crossroads with Ilir Deda
October 25, 2023 08:00 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBIn the aftermath of troubling recent violence, this episode sees Ivan Vejvoda host Ilir Deda for a discussion of the uncertain future facing the Western Balkans as the complex Serbian/Kosovan relationship hangs in the balance. Making a strong case for a robust and immediate diplomatic effort to ensure that the agreement reached in March is implemented quickly, Deda runs through the obstacles to progress and discusses the roles of the EU, the US and NATO in stabilizing the region and preventi...
Episode 26: Serbia and Kosovo at a Crossroads with Ilir Deda
October 25, 2023 08:00 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBIn the aftermath of troubling recent violence, this episode sees Ivan Vejvoda host Ilir Deda for a discussion of the uncertain future facing the Western Balkans as the complex Serbian/Kosovan relationship hangs in the balance. Making a strong case for a robust and immediate diplomatic effort to ensure that the agreement reached in March is implemented quickly, Deda runs through the obstacles to progress and discusses the roles of the EU, the US and NATO in stabilizing the region and preventi...
Episode 25: Populism, Trauma, and Polish Democracy with Karolina Wigura
October 12, 2023 08:00 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBIn this fortnight's episode, Ivan Vejvoda welcomes Karolina Wigura to the podcast for an in-depth look at Poland’s political trajectory. With parliamentary elections looming on October 15th, Karolina analyzes the state of Poland’s democracy amidst the rise of populism. She explains how the ruling Law and Justice party manipulates the media and campaign finance to maintain power and explains how - while Poland has backed Ukraine - democratic backsliding has created tensions with the country's...
Episode 24: On Ukraine and Europe with Hanna Shelest
September 28, 2023 12:13 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBThe new season of Vienna Coffee House Conversations opens with Ivan Vejvoda speaking with Hanna Shelest, foreign affairs and security policy expert from Ukraine, for an inside perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian war. As Europe debates how to support Ukraine and potentially extend EU membership, Hanna provides insights from the ground on the current state of the conflict. She discusses the resilience and sacrifices of the Ukrainian people, the shifting international perceptions of the conflict...
Episode 23: New Approaches to EU Enlargement with Kristof Bender
June 28, 2023 08:00 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBIn this week's episode Ivan Vejvoda sits down with European Stability Initiative deputy chairman and Europe's Futures fellow Kristof Bender to discuss a policy that many point to as among the most successful peace projects in the history of the world: EU enlargement. As the Union decides whether and how quickly to extend EU membership to Ukraine and Molodova and formalize their move towards Europe in response to the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kristof and Ivan lead us through the...
Episode 22: Ukraine, Moldova and Europe After the Russo-Ukrainian War with Balázs Jarábik
June 21, 2023 08:00 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBIn this week's episode Ivan Vejvoda is joined by Balázs Jarábik to consider the future of Ukraine and its neighbours in a Europe forever changed by the full-scale Russian invasion of February 24th, 2022. How will extending the embrace of the EU and NATO as signaled by Western European leaders impact the global situation? What will be the on-the-ground effects of the war for Moldova, the territory of Transnistria, for the neighbourhood and for Ukraine itself? What kind of Ukraine will emerge ...
Episode 21: Untranslatable Ukrainian Humour and Life in Ukraine Today with Oksana Forostyna
June 14, 2023 08:00 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBWriter, editor and prominent intellectual Oksana Forostyna joins Ivan Vejvoda from Lviv to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine, her recent essay on Ukrainian jokes and humour and their importance as a shield against trauma and aggression, the political life of the country during wartime; and daily family life during these difficult years. A co-founder of Yakaboo Publishing Oksana was chosen for the New Europe 100 list of outstanding challengers from Central and Eastern Europe in 2014 a...
Episode 20: A Resilient, Independent and Green Europe with Heather Grabbe
June 07, 2023 08:00 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBAs Europeans reckon once again with the challenges of war on their continent, has the pressing issue of climate change fallen by the wayside as governments have scrambled to contend with even more immediate concerns? How can the EU work toward greater independence and security while still reacting appropriately to the environmental threat of global warming? In this conversation Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundations and Europe's Futures fellow Heather Grabbe and Ivan Vejvoda explore the ...
Episode 19: The Past, Present and Future of EU Enlargement with Veronica Anghel
May 24, 2023 08:00 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBThis week Ivan Vejvoda is joined by Johns Hopkins University - School of Advanced International Studies adjunct professor and former foreign policy advisor to the Romanian presidential administration Veronica Anghel to discuss the state of EU enlargement policy in 2023. As the continent redefines itself, its security and its long-term objectives in the shadow of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, what is the state of play for candidate countries seeking to join the European Union? W...
Episode 18: Europe's Future Voters with Ivana Dragičević
May 17, 2023 08:00 - 36 minutes - 33 MBThis week Europe's Futures fellow and editor at N1 Television, CNN affiliate for the Adria-Balkans region, Ivana Dragičević talks to Ivan Vejvoda about Europe's youth and the shifting cultural and geopolitical forces that are shaping how young people see the world they are set to inherit. What to make of a trend that sees voter turnout waning while other forms of political engagement surge? Are the young susceptible to algorithms and bad actors found on social media apps that older generatio...
Episode 17: The European Reaction to the Russo-Ukrainian War with Nathalie Tocci
May 10, 2023 07:00 - 39 minutes - 36.4 MBIn this episode, Director of Rome's Institute for International Affairs and 22/23 Europe's Futures Fellow of IWM and ERSTE Foundation Nathalie Tocci joins Ivan Vejvoda to offer her assessment of the European response to the full-scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine. From the often surprising unity and speed with which the EU has adapted to economic, energy and geopolitical challenges to the more fraught issues of security and defence where a clear European purpose has been less in evidence, Nat...
Episode 16: Assessing the post-soviet space a year on from the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine with Thomas De Waal
May 03, 2023 05:00 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn a wide ranging conversation that aims to provide a strategic overview of the former Soviet Union as its constituent countries reconfigure their relationships with each other, with the Russian government and with the rest of the world - Ivan Vejvoda and Thomas de Waal reckon with the complex dynamics of power and shifting influences a year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. From the EU facing societies of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to the central Asian countries with strong links ...
Episode 15: The European Green Deal and its Implications with Olivia Lazard
March 08, 2022 10:55 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBIn this conversation, Ivan Vejvoda talks to Carnegie Europe visiting scholar and COP26 attendee Olivia Lazard about the European Green Deal - the series of policy initiatives described by Ursula Von Der Leyen as Europe's 'man-on-the-moon moment'. While decarbonisation is unquestionably desirable and necessary should we think of 'the environment' as including the geopolitical, and social environments actually experienced by people in their daily lives? How do we reach the goal of net zero wi...
Episode 14: Deliberative Democracy, its Dangers and the Future of Europe with Wojciech Przybylski
March 01, 2022 12:54 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBThe Conference on the Future of Europe - a multi-year consultation that aims to set an agenda for the reform of EU policies and institutions in the medium to long term by inviting participation from EU citizens and civil society - is ongoing following the launch of its digital platform in April 2021. Does the conference represent a new frontier in deliberative democracy or does it give undue prominence to the preoccupations and divisive rhetoric of outlier political movements that do not rep...
Episode 13: CO₂, China and Economic Competition with Janka Oertel
February 22, 2022 10:55 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBThis week Ivan Vejvoda is in conversation with the director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations Janka Oertel. Against a backdrop of rising global temperatures and the pledges made at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow last year, Oertel and Vejvoda consider the pivotal role that China will play in determining whether humanity can achieve its stated aim and keep warming below 1.5 degrees. Conventional wisdom sees the rise in emissions that has accompanied China's emerg...
Episode 12: Abortion Rights and Ultra Conservatism with Amanda Coakley
February 15, 2022 14:17 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBIn this episode Ivan Vejvoda speaks with award-winning international correspondent and Europe's Futures fellow Amanda Coakley about the rollback of women's reproductive rights in Central Europe following abortion's effective outlawing in Poland when a judgement of the country's constitutional tribunal came in to force in January 2021 limiting abortion to cases where the pregnancy was the result of a criminal act or where the life of the mother was at risk. Here they ask why some countries ha...
Episode 11: European Autonomy with Zoran Nechev
February 08, 2022 13:31 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBZoran Nechev heads the Center for EU integration at the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” Skopje, a Macedonian think tank organisation devoted to research and capacity-building in matters related to EU in general, and the enlargement process more specifically. He is an IWM Europe's Futures fellow, a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit's Institute for European Studies and an associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Rel...
Episode 10: Democratic Resilience with Oana Popescu-Zamfir
February 01, 2022 12:32 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBA renowned public figure and director of the Global Focus Center in Romania, Ivan Vejvoda's guest this week is Oana Popescu-Zamfir. Bringing a wealth of academic and government experience to the Europe's Future's programme, Oana is also the director of the Democratic Resilience Index: the first quantitative instrument specifically designed to measure the robustness of democratic institutions around the world with pilot results in Romania, Hungary and the Republic of Moldova. Here, she and I...
Episode 9: China, Europe and the Belt and Road Initiative with Valbona Zeneli
January 25, 2022 11:59 - 31 minutes - 29.1 MBIn this episode Ivan Vejvoda talks with Valbona Zeneli, professor of national security studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. Born in Albania, Dr. Zeneli is an economist with an interest in international economics, good governance and international security politics. In a complex discussion, Zeneli and Vejvoda trace the web of Chinese economic influence and address the geopolitical impact of China's global infrastructure development stra...
Episode 8: America's Pivot to Asia with Soli Özel
January 18, 2022 12:10 - 34 minutes - 31.2 MBIn this first podcast of our second season, Soli Özel and Ivan Vejvoda discuss the ongoing refocusing of the US's attention on the Indo-Pacific region and the attendant disengagement of the Superpower from the theaters that defined its international relationships during the cold war. Tracing the line of recent history from the so-called 'Obama doctrine' through the Trump presidency and up to the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, the furore in Europe surrounding the AUKUS p...
Episode 7: Precarity, Risk and Safe Speech with Albena Azmanova
May 13, 2021 07:00 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBFocusing on the arguments in her latest book – Capitalism On Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia – Ivan Vejvoda and Albena Azmanova discuss the future of Guy Standing’s “precariat”, that class of people whom late capitalism has condemned to live without predictability or security and who are asked to take ever greater risks with ever diminishing prospects of reward. They look at the possibilities for change, the insufficiency of ‘inequality” as an...
Episode 6: Precarity, Risk and Safe Speech with Albena Azmanova
May 13, 2021 07:00 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBFocusing on the arguments in her latest book – Capitalism On Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia – Ivan Vejvoda and Albena Azmanova discuss the future of Guy Standing’s “precariat”, that class of people whom late capitalism has condemned to live without predictability or security and who are asked to take ever greater risks with ever diminishing prospects of reward. They look at the possibilities for change, the insufficiency of ‘inequality” as an...
Episode 6: The Regression of Democracy with Judy Dempsey
April 29, 2021 09:50 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBIn this fortnight's Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to Judy Dempsey, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of its Strategic Europe blog . Formerly a columnist for the International New York Times, Germany Correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and Eastern Europe correspondent for the Financial Times - she has borne witness to the tribulations of European democracy over many years covering the NATO and European enlargements and reporting from t...
Episode 5: The Missing Pages of European History with Teresa Reiter
March 03, 2021 14:32 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBIn the latest Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vjevoda speaks to political activism expert, Head of Communications at Forum Alpbach and Europe's Futures fellow Teresa Reiter about the way that history is taught, utlisised and remembered in twenty-first century Europe. From the ways that national foreign policy shapes curricula to the tendency to write the recent history of the Western Balkans out of a mainstream narrative that sees the creation of the EU as a successful project to end ...
Episode Four: Political Narrative and the Stories of Europe's Futures with Julia De Clerck-Sachsse
February 02, 2021 11:05 - 39 minutes - 36 MBIn this fortnight's Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to EU diplomat and academic Julia De Clerck-Sachsse about the power of narratives to shape policy and the future of the European project. Was Barack Obama right to say that "perhaps [Europe needs] an outsider, somebody who is not European, to remind [it] of the magnitude of what [it has] achieved"? As enlargement proceeds and threats to the democratic order arise, is Europe able to tell itself the stories that it needs...
Episode Three: Democracy and Crisis with Wolfgang Merkel
January 12, 2021 20:09 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBWolfgang Merkel is on twitter @merkel_wolfgang and his most recent book, Democracy and Crisis: Challenges in Turbulent Times is available from Springer. His 2020 article 'Who Governs in Deep Crises?" can be read at Berghahn. Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in...
Episode Two: EU Enlargement with Srdjan Cvijic
December 30, 2020 03:40 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBSrdjan Cvijic is on twitter @srdjancvijic. Dr. Cvijic is frequently sought out by the media and has published extensively, in both academic and policy format, on EU foreign relations and the politics of the Balkans Previously Dr. Cvijic was a senior diplomat posted in the missions of the Republic of Serbia in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Cvijic also worked as the advisor for the Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, European Policy Centre and the NATO Pa...
Episode One: Russian Influence and Frozen Conflicts with Dimitar Bechev- The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh
December 22, 2020 13:18 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBDimitar Bechev is on twitter @DimitarBechev and his most recent book, Rival Power: Russia's Influence in Southeast Europe is available from Amazon UK here | Amazon DE here Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlar...
Trailer: Coffee House Conversations
November 26, 2020 23:43 - 2 minutes - 1.89 MBIvan Vejvoda introduces the topics under consideration - and the guests who will be joining him to consider them - during season one of this new podcast series. Subscribe now and look out for Vienna Coffee House Conversations on Europe's Futures from IWM. Coming very soon to your podcast app of choice.Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of idea...