Working Groups and Hosts

1. Security Issues
(ifa and Bosch Foundation)

1. The US approach:
   the new National Security Strategy of September 2002
   new approach to multilateralism and international alliances; promotion of democracy and free market economies; fight against terrorism; homeland security
   
   
2. The German approach:
   the current National Security Strategy
   the Bundeswehr's changed tasks; strict multilateral approach to international problems; conflict and crisis prevention in German foreign policy; relationship between international cultural projects and crisis prevention, e.g. European-Islamic dialogue
   
   
3. The US-German common global responsibility:
   
   1. cooperation in the war against terrorism
   2. convincing others to join
   3. developing new ideas and approaches
      

2. Energy and Environment
(Bosch Foundation)

For a number of reasons, it could prove to be a very productive way of contributing valuable findings to the topic Energy and Environment if the subject were dealt with during the transatlantic Alumni Conference in a future-oriented workshop involving interdisciplinary opinion leaders and disseminators.

The transatlantic community bears special global responsibility for the whole topic of Energy and Environment. Taking their share of the world population into account, the USA and Europe use an overproportional amount of the world's environment and consume an overproportional amount of its energy – although it must be admitted that this is more true for the USA than for the EU (for example: In the year 2000, the USA used 12,100 kWh electricity per capita and the EU on average only 6,120 kWh per capita). From a global point of view, the transatlantic community is in a position to make a very important contribution towards reducing damage to the environment and lowering the amount of energy used.

It is also true that the transatlantic partners have much better access to the technology needed to use natural resources in an environmentally friendly manner or to repair existing environmental damage than any other country in the world. Just how this know-how is put to use is decisive if, for example, the objectives such as those formulated in the UN Millenium Declaration are to be achieved. One such target is to halve the number of people who have no access to clean drinking water by 2015.

Furthermore, Energy and Environment is currently the second topic – in addition to States under the Rule of Law and Legal Culture – where the political elite on both sides of the Atlantic have developed fundamental differences of opinion: At the latest since the 1997 Amsterdam Agreement was included in the EU agreement as the model for lasting development, the declared belief in ecological considerations has been integrated in the fundamental values of European politics, even though it has taken on various aspects in the different countries. Ecological and energy questions also play a constant role in public awareness – not least of all because of the high costs involved for the individual. This trend is reinforced and standardized by the continuous development of EU regulations in the environmental sector.

The USA, however, have repeatedly refused to ratify international environmental agreements such as the Kyoto agreement to reduce the emissions of CO2. Here there were serious political differences of opinion between the EU and the Bush administration. Also, in comparison to Europe, energy consumption and environmental protection only plays a relatively secondary role in public awareness in the USA. Because of this, in the field of energy and environment it is noticeable that the small group of American opinion leaders especially interested in this subject and the US experts in the field orient themselves on Europe and not the other way round as is usually the case for most political sectors. (For instance, among the Bosch Fellows, environmental policy is the second most frequently occupied field in the area of 'public policy', coming directly after foreign and security policy.)

During the Alumni Conference, it would be possible to discuss the reasons for these differences in the development of political thinking and the consequences arising therefrom, as well as to try define an appropriate approach for overcoming them.

The following suggestions could be considered for the main aspects to be dealt with during the Alumni Conference:

• The role of international agreements in environmental policies.
  
• The safeguarding of energy requirements for the future – both strategically and technologically.
  
• The role of opinion leaders and elites for public awareness and environmental education of the general public
  
• Is it possible to define specific objectives for the transatlantic dialogue in connection with environmental and energy policies?
  
• Furthermore, the topic Energy and Environment would emphasize the interdisciplinary approach of the Alumni Conference as it interconnects with two of the other scheduled topics: Security at Home and Abroad and Ethics and Economy.
  
  

The following aspects of Energy and Environment could be discussed within the context of Security Issues:

• Environmental terrorism as a potential threat for the international community of states.
  
• The battle for scarce resouces – e.g. water – as the reason for conflicts.
  
• Protecting the world's energy reserves from the clutches of terrorist regimes.
  

The future-oriented workshop as a planned method of dealing with such questions was originally created by the ecological movement for use in environmental education and it would be easy to adapt this conceptional approach for such an Alumni Conference. It would also be possible to use debates or hearings as alternatives.

As the opinion leaders and disseminators from the field of energy and environment are not just oriented one-sidedly towards the USA in the transatlantic dialogue, there is a good chance of being able to built up a lasting network with a genuine bilateral exchange for this subject.

3. Politics and Media
(Deutsche Welle/ Goethe Institute)

• The influence of global networks, CNN, BBC World, Murdoch Empire (dealing with what information is publicized and how, opinions worldwide, the spread/ acceptance of 'western' values, the manner in which politicians are portrayed).
• Global networks as centres of power, points of reference for politicians/politics
• The influence on international relations: The responsibility of the media for good or bad relations (e.g. Schröder-Bush – visual and verbal 'presentation' in the media, e.g. Middle East – differentiation vs. simplification, generalization)
• The North-South Divide: responsibility for global information
• The East-West Divide – 'western' values vs. the Islam-oriented world, (historical/ cultural differences, different traditions in dealing with visual messages)
• Even after 1990 – massive media restrictions in e.g. the former Soviet Union, responsibility of the media for GLOBAL provision of information
  - cultural globalization – and resentment of it as a source of conflict (anti-Americanism, anti-western terrorism)
• Monopolies for global media companies (US film industry, global export, role of e.g. MTV, Sony, Bertelsmann (but see also section 2 below).
  - The power of Al Jazeera
  - Global networks and local cultures (e.g. Telenova in Brazil)
  - The Digital Divide (cf. Africa in particular)
  - Who 'produces' information? Who creates 'publicity' and for what purposes?
  
  

(b) Global Responsibility – How the media shape politics – and politicians instrumentalize the media

• 'Key speeches to meet prime time' - Political influence through media presence, promoting policies and politicians
• Concentration/ownership/monopolies/control (e.g. Italy, Berlusconi)
• Censorship and control (e.g. Russia, former Eastern block, China)
• Censorship through ownership
• Censorship through government control
• "Who cares about responsibility if it doesn’t bring in quotas or cash?" – the extent to which commercial interests control provision of information, 'selling' politics in the media, politics as a 'media theatre' show.
• Public versus commercial media and their 'global responsibility'– (a transatlantic comparison)
  
  

(c) Global Responsibility in Times of Conflict

• National interests versus global responsibility
  
• How to get unbiased information in times of conflict (cf. Gulf War, BBC subject to military censorship)
• Resisting domestic pressure from authorities to provide accurate reporting
• How to secure journalistic independence in times of war
• Guaranteeing sources – it's too easy to quote CNN, problems of authenticating/identifying/verifying pictures, use of archive material without it being identified as such (e.g. Chechnya conflict, West Bank footage)
• The role of communications technology in times of conflict (satellites, short-wave, the Internet)
• Creating 'publicity', a 'public sphere' on a national level, on a global level (democracy based on creating a public sphere, making information public, liberation from the control of groups such as aristocracy, church)
• How can we prevent the development of 'information monopolies' or an information aristocracy?
  

4. Migration/Integration/Intercultural Communication
(Fulbright Commission)

The discussion will be structured under seven general headings, with some specifically related issues on each:

1. What are the dynamics and constraints of migration? – push and pull factors. Immigration involves both attraction and control. Receiving countries are magnets for multiple reasons.
   
   
2. National policy goals: How are they determined? How do they vary from one system to another, and how do they evolve over time?
   
   The impact of demographic trends and labor market needs. Dealing with crisis aspects: refugees, asylum seekers, human smuggling, illegals. Under what circumstances do immigration and integration become politicized? (See Topic 6 below).
   
   What are the policy spill-overs? These involve the longer term implications for social costs, housing, jobs, education. International competition for high-end immigrants? What linkage between high and low-end migration patterns?
   
   
3. Instruments and mechanisms of control. What are the connections between control and integration? Control measures as conditioning integration?
   
   Links between migration policies and internal security issues, notably border issues, and, increasingly, the dangers of terrorism.
   
   Trans-national solutions, border control cooperation in data bases, role of international policing and related aspects of internal security.
   
   
4. Citizenship – alternatives, conflict over citizenship and its impacts.
   
   
5. Social integration and inclusion. Here we see the great debate over assimilation vs. segmentation (integration into subcultures) vs. multi-culturalism (of which Canada is the positive model).
   
   What have been the effects, socially, economically and politically of different approaches to integration? Implications for educational reform, for job training, professional recruitment from immigrant groups.
   
   
6. Politics of immigration and citizenship? Integrated pluralism or ethnic conflict? Politicization/polarization, why and with what effects? Rise of populist xenophobic anti-foreigner politics (e.g. Haider, Le Pen, Fortuyn, Bossi and many other examples).
   
   Extent to which and why mainstream parties have adopted agendas from the populist protest parties?
   
   
7. Brain migration
   
   Is there a specific imbalance between education and research systems that leads to lopsided, unreversable migration of well-trained people. What is the impact on the special areas of culture, education and science. What exactly motivated well-trained people in academic to migrate?