College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• Globetrotter

  Speaking engagements throughout Europe and a Fulbright add up to an interesting spring for political science's Richard Mansbach.

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  Responsibilities of a four-month Fulbright Fellowship would be enough for most people.
  
  Richard Mansbach, professor of political science, isn't content to stay in Vienna during the 2007 spring semester where he will serve as a Fulbright instructor at Austria's Diplomatic Academy.
  
  "I tell my students that if they learn nothing else they should see the world through the eyes of whom they are studying and not just late 20th century Americans," Mansbach says.
  
  Mansbach will take his own advice this spring when he visits more countries in a four-month span than most tourists do.
  
  In the process, he's on a speaking engagement tour that would make many professional speakers envious.
  
  Next February Mansbach is scheduled to give presentations at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs; at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim; at Tampere University, Finland; the University of Frankfurt; and the University of Bielefeld, also in Germany.
  
  After this non-stop lecture tour, he stays in Vienna for a few weeks before hitting the road again. This time he has speaking engagements at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Haifa University in Israel, followed by talks at the University of Zurich and the University of Zagreb (Croatia).
  
  "I also have an invitation to speak at Trinity University in Ireland," he said. "That's it so far. I can do more but I have to do something in Vienna."
  
  For his Fulbright Fellowship, Mansbach will be training diplomats from throughout the world at Austria's Diplomatic Academy. He's scheduled to teach two post-graduate courses on international political theory as well as a short course on U.S. foreign policy.
  
  A four-month stay in Europe is perfect for Mansbach's research activities, which has been focused in recent years on "identity politics."
  
  "European societies have been fundamentally homogenous," he says. "Unlike the U.S., none of these countries have had large immigrant populations.
  
  "But now many of these countries are being called upon to assimilate large immigrant populations, which are growing at a much faster rate than the indigenous populations of these nations."
  
  These efforts have proven to be far from successful. France is wracked by racial violence. Radical Islamic fundamentalists are prevalent throughout the continent including England.
  
  Mansbach says that's partly because immigrants to Europe are not accepted as true citizens of their countries and partly because these immigrants are not prepared to accept European culture and norms and thereby assimilate.
  
  "The U.S. is the only country whose requirement for citizenship is that you live there," he said. "In Germany for instance, it's blood-based. Even if you have lived in Germany for 30 years if you are not an ethnic German you can't be a citizen.
  
  "But on the other hand if you were born of German parents in another country, for example, Russia, and lived there all your life, if you decided to move back to Germany you would be regarded as a citizen."
  
  European countries however are being faced with the need to court immigrant populations because the indigenous populations are declining and more workers are needed to maintain their economies.
  
  This is the third Fulbright Fellowship Mansbach has received. Previously he served in Singapore and South Korea.
  
  "Originally I had applied for a brief two-week Fulbright to Germany on the issue of how Germany assimilates non-Germans into their country," he said. "Europe is the place to be to study this issue.
  
  It's on the cutting edge of what is going on in the real world."

Richard Mansbach

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November 13 to December 3, 2006

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