UNT symposium to focus on democracy, markets

Four nationally known university professors who are considered experts on democracy and free markets will share their research during a symposium at UNT Nov. 9.

"Markets and Democracy," sponsored by the Department of Political Science, begins at 9 a.m. in Room 322 of Wooten Hall and is free and open to the public.

James Meernik, associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, says one of the most important foreign policy goals of the U.S. government is promoting democracy and free markets.

"Scholars and the community have an interest in such efforts, the likelihood of their success and their impact on our foreign policy as well as the business community," he says. "When the United States seeks to advance democracy and markets to create a safer and more stable world, this aim affects U.S. security in the world."

The symposium's speakers include John Freeman, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota; Steven Lewis, senior researcher at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy; Robert J. Franzese Jr., associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; and Kelly M. Kadera, assistant professor of political science at the University of Iowa.

After coffee and doughnuts, Freeman will be the symposium's first speaker at 10 a.m. His topic is "Democracy and Globalization in Emerging Market Countries."

He is the author of Democracy and Markets: The Politics of Mixed Economies, which received the International Studies Association's Quincy Wright Award. He is also the co-author of Three Way Street: Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics, and has edited three volumes of Political Analysis. In addition, Freeman has written more than 20 research articles that have appeared in journals in North America and Europe.

A member of the University of Minnesota faculty since 1984, Freeman also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Missouri.

Lewis will discuss "Theories of Institutional Change and Path Dependency: Energy Sector Privatization in China and Brazil" at 11:15 a.m.

He is the director of the Baker Institute's Transnational China Project, which conducts research on the forces shaping the rise of mass-media-oriented consumer societies in the greater China region. He also teaches in Rice's Department of Political Science. He previously taught at the University of Rochester, where he conducted a study on federalism, corporatism and foreign investment in China as part of the Comparative Property Rights Project at the University of Rochester's Wallis Institute of Political Economy.

After a lunch break from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m., the symposium will resume with Franzese speaking on "The Effective Constituency in Distributive Politics."

He is the author of Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies, published this year, and he is a co-editor of a forthcoming book, Institutional Conflicts and Complementarities: Monetary Policy and Wage Bargaining Institutions in EMU (European Monetary System). He has also published numerous journal articles, book chapters and book reviews.

Franzese is a faculty affiliate at the University of Michigan's Center for Political Studies, Center for European Studies and European Union Center. He has also taught at the University of California at Los Angeles and Harvard University.

The symposium will conclude with Kadera speaking at 3 p.m. on "Democratic Survival, Peace and War."

She is the author of The Power Conflict Study, which explains patterns of behavior in major world rivalries since 1816. She recently received a National Science Foundation grant to collect and analyze data on other international conflicts dating back to the late 19th century.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

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