European Council on Foreign Relations

Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy

SAIS Europe

Chair: Rector, SAIS Europe

Transatlantic Politics and Policy after the Election Year - A series of talks @SAIS Europe

Politics and policy in the transatlantic space are deeply intertwined. Crucial elections held in 2024 in Europe and the United States are destined to shape politics and policy on the two shores of the Atlantic for years to come. This cycle of events held at SAIS Europe in the academic year 2024-25 will explore the major political and policy implications of this electoral phase, and in particular its repercussions on Europe and on the transatlantic relationship.

The US Election - Where Does it Leave Europe?

The 2024 US presidential election may be one of the most consequential in the history of the transatlantic relationship. The two candidates stand for diametrically opposite views on most issues, including Europe. This second meeting will unpack the implications of the US election on US foreign policy, and specifically its approach to Europe, including the EU, NATO and the transatlantic economic relationship.

AMANDA SLOAT

Amanda Sloat is the Former Special Assistant to President Biden, and Former Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council. Before joining the Biden Administration, she served as the Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She was also a non-resident fellow in the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Dr. Sloat previously served in the U.S. government for nearly a decade. During the Obama Administration, she was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Affairs at the State Department; Senior Advisor to the White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region; and Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. She also worked as senior professional staff on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, with responsibility for European policy. Prior to her government service, she was a senior program officer with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), including work in Iraq with the Council of Representatives. Dr. Sloat was a post-doctoral research fellow with the Institute of Governance at Queen's University Belfast. During this time, she held visiting fellowships at the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and the Jean Monnet Center at New York University Law School. She also served as a special advisor to the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, and European Commission. Dr. Sloat holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Political Theory from James Madison College at Michigan State University. She has published a book (Scotland in Europe: A Study of Multi-Level Governance) and numerous articles on European politics.

MAJDA RUGE

Majda Ruge is a Senior Policy Fellow with the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin. Before joining ECFR, she spent three years as a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute/SAIS at the Johns Hopkins University. She has twice testified as an expert witness at hearings of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Western Balkans. Ruge worked in management and advisory capacities for the Delegation of the European Commission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina. During this time she participated in key state-building reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which merged the sub-state customs and tax administrations into a single state-level institution. Between 2012 and 2014, she was a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of the Free University of Berlin, where she taught courses on international relations and nationalism. From 2014 to 2016, she lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she was associated with the Gulf Research Center. Ruge holds degrees from the European University Institute (PhD,2011 and MA, 2006), Central European University in Budapest (MA in International Relations and European Studies, 2001) and Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia (BA in International Relations, 2000).

NATHALIE TOCCI

Nathalie Tocci is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Adjunct Professor at the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute), Honorary Professor at the University of Tübingen, independent and non-executive board member of the energy company Eni and Europe's Futures fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, IWM). She has been Special Advisor to EU High Representatives Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. In that capacity, she wrote the European Global Strategy and worked on its implementation. Tocci has been Pierre Keller Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and, prior to joining Eni, was an independent board member of Edison. She has held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, the European University Institute, Florence, and has taught at the College of Europe, Bruges. Her research interests include European integration and European foreign policy, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, transatlantic relations, multilateralism, conflict resolution, energy, climate and defence. Tocci is a columnist for Politico and La Stampa.

JOHN L. HARPER

John L. Harper is Senior Adjunct Professor, SAIS Europe, and Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins University. AB Haverford College, 1972; PhD, Johns Hopkins SAIS, 1981; Resident Professor of American Foreign Policy and European Studies at the Bologna Center/SAIS Europe, 1981-2020. Member of the Istituto Affari Internazionali; contributing editor, Survival; former German Marshall Fund Research Fellow. He is the author of America and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945-1948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, winner of the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies, 1987 (in Italian translation as: America e la ricostruzione dell'Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987); American Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 1995; American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; The Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 (In Italian translation as: La Guerra fredda: un mondo in bilico, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013; Greek edition by Gutenberg Press, 2021).