Symposium

Michael Plummer (B'82), SAIS Europe Director (outgoing) and ENI Professor of International Economics

Michael Plummer has been Director of SAIS Europe since 2014. A SAIS Professor of International Economics since 2001 and the Eni Professor of Economics since 2008, he was Head of the Development Division of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris from 2010 to 2012; an associate professor at Brandeis University (1992-2001); and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Economics (Elsevier) 2007-2015 (currently Editor-in-Chief Emeritus). He was president of the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES) from 2008 until 2015. A former Fulbright Chair in Economics and Pew Fellow in International Affairs at Harvard University, he has been an Asian Development Bank (ADB) distinguished lecturer on several occasions and team leader of projects for various organizations including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the United Nations, the OECD, the ADB, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. He has taught at more than a dozen universities in Asia, Europe, and North America. Professor Plummer has advised several governments on the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and is member of the editorial boards of World Development, the Asian Economic Journal; and the Journal of Southeast Asian Economics (formerly ASEAN Economic Bulletin). He is author/co-author of over 100 journal articles and book chapters. His PhD is in economics from Michigan State University.

Eugene Finkel, Kenneth H. Keller Associate Professor of International Affairs and Academic and Faculty Liaison

Eugene (Evgeny) Finkel works at the intersection of political science and history. He was born in Ukraine and grew up in Israel. Finkel received a BA in Political Science and International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on how institutions and individuals respond to extreme situations: mass violence, state collapse, and rapid change.

Finkel is the author of Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017) and, together with Scott Gehlbach, of Reform and Rebellion in Weak States (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His next book, Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics and Security in Putin?s Russia is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, East European Politics and Societies, Slavic Review, and several other journals and edited volumes. Finkel also published articles and op-eds in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs and other outlets.