Mustafa Akyol, Hurriyet Daily News: Freedom of expression in nation states
Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish political commentator and author based in Istanbul, Turkey.
Akyol was born in Ankara in 1972 and had his early education there. Later he graduated from Istanbul Nisantasi British High School and from the International Relations Department of the Bosphorus University. He had his master thesis on the Kurdish question at the History Department of the same university. He has given seminars in several universities and think-tanks in the U.S. and the U.K. on issues relating to Islam and modernity.
Since 2002, he has been a regular commentator in the Turkish media. He is currently a regular columnist for Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey’s foremost English-language daily. He also writes a regular column for the Turkish-language daily, Star.
Mustafa Akyol has a book in Turkish titled Rethinking The Kurdish Question: What Went Wrong? What Next? (Dogan Publishing, 2006). His forthcoming book, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim case for Liberty, will be published by W.W. Norton in July 2011.
Prof Peter Boettke, George Mason University: Is State Intervention in the Economy Inevitable?
Peter Boettke is a university professor of economics at George Mason University, the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism, vice president for research, and research director for the Global Prosperity Initiative at the Mercatus Center, and the deputy director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy.
Before joining the faculty at George Mason University in 1998, Boettke taught at New York University. In addition, Boettke was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University during the 1992-1993 academic year. He has been a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena, Germany, the Stockholm School of Economics, Central European University in Prague, Charles University in Prague, and was the F. A. Hayek Fellow in 2004 and 2006 at the London School of Economics.
Boettke has authored numerous books and articles; his most recent book, Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (Routledge, 2009), co-authored with Paul Dragos Aligica, analyzes the ascendancy of the New Institutional Theory movement. Boettke is also the author of several books on the history, collapse and transition from socialism in the former Soviet Union — The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: The Formative Years, 1918-1928 (Kluwer, 1990); Why Perestroika Failed: The Economics and Politics of Socialism Transformation (Routledge, 1993); and Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy (Routledge, 2001). He is also now the co-author, along with David Prychitko, of the classic principles of economics texts of Paul Heyne’s The Economic Way of Thinking (12th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2009).
Prof. Steven Davies, Institute of Economic Affairs: What is a nation; what is national identity?
Steve Davies is Education Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. He is also a part-time program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Virginia. From 1979 until 2009 he was Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Economic History at Manchester Metropolitan University.. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green.
A historian, he graduated from St Andrews University in Scotland in 1976 and gained his PhD from the same institution in 1984. He was co-editor with Nigel Ashford of The Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (Routledge, 1991) and wrote several entries for The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism edited by Ronald Hamowy (Sage, 2008), including the general introduction. He is also the author of Empiricism and History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and of several articles and essays on topics including the private provision of public goods and the history of crime and criminal justice. He has recently completed a book on the history of the world since 1250 and the origins of modernity. Among his other interests are science fiction and the fortunes of Manchester City.
Dr Sam Gregg, Acton Institute: Freedom of religion in nation states.
Dr. Samuel Gregg is director of research at the Acton Institute. He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, ethics in finance, and natural law theory. He has an MA in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford.
He is the author of several books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (2001), On Ordered Liberty (2003), his prize-winning The Commercial Society (2007), and Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010) as well as monographs such as Ethics and Economics (1999), A Theory of Corruption (2004), and Banking, Justice, and the Common Good (2005). Several of these works have been translated into a variety of languages.
He has also co-edited books such as Profit, Prudence and Virtue: Essays in Ethics, Business and Management (2009). He also publishes in journals such as the Journal of Markets & Morality; Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy; Law and Investment Management; Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines; Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy; Economic Affairs; Oxford Analytica; Journal of Scottish Philosophy; and Policy.
He is a regular writer of opinion-pieces which have appeared in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal Europe, the Washington Times, the Australian Financial Review, and Business Review Weekly. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 2004.
Cumhur Thomas Gür: Culture and nation in the era of globalisation.
Cumhur Thomas Gür is an author, political commentator and consultant specialised on Public Affairs and Media and Investor Relations. He is also an editorial columnist at Svenska Dagbladet and a member of the Editorial Board of Axess Magasin in Sweden. He is a board member of the stock registered company Accelerator Nordic AB and a pro bono member of the Swedish NGO Centrum för rättvisa (Center for Justice), who supports the rights of individuals versus the public sector in Sweden through litigation and by participating in the public debate on human rights.
Gür was born in Turkey and migrated with his parents to Sweden in the 1970’ies. He is the author several monographs and books on migration, immigrant and minority politics, on ethnic business and on preferential politics and affirmative action. Gür has a BS from University of Lund and University of Stockholm with a major on history of economy.
Previously Gür has held positions the anchorman of the documentary series “Global Axess” at Axess TV, columnist at Finanstidningen, Editorial Writer and Foreign Policy Editor at Svenska Dagbladet, Press officer and Head of Campaign Staff at ”Yes to Europe” related to the Swedish referendum on the EU-membership in 1994, Press Secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce under the Bildt-government of 1991, Manager Corporate Communications at the construction company Siab, Press Officer at the Commander-in-chief for the Swedish Defense Forces, Press Officer at the Swedish UN-contingent in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and as a journalist at Dagens Nyheter and the Swedish Broadcasting Company.
Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament: The EU: Protector of Liberty?
Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist. He has been a Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999, winning re-election in the top slot in 2004 and 2009. In the European Parliament, he led the campaign for a referendum on the European Constitution. He was also the first MEP to write in detail about the allowances and expenses available in Brussels.
In March 2009, a YouTube clip of his speech to Gordon Brown in the European Parliament attracted 1.4 million hits within 72 hours making it by far the most watched political clip in British history.
Daniel was educated at Marlborough and Oriel College, Oxford. He worked as a speechwriter for William Hague and Michael Howard. He speaks French and Spanish, and is married with two young children.
Daniel has been writing for The Daily Telegraph since 1996, and also contributes to numerous other publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Washington Examiner, The Spectator, The Mail on Sunday, The Australian, The Catholic Herald, Die Welt (Germany) and Weltwoche (Switzerland).
He is the author of nine books of which the most recent – The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America – is a New York Times best-seller
Dr David R Henderson, Hoover Institute: The Great Financial Crisis Redux
David R. Henderson is an associate professor of economics with at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. From 1982 to 1984, he was the senior economist for health policy and, from 1983 to 1984, the senior economist for energy policy, with President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. His specialty is in making economics understandable to non-economists. He blogs regularly at Econlog, http://econlog.econlib.org/.
Henderson is the editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (Liberty Fund, 2008). It is now on the web at: http://www.econlib.org/library/CEE.html. It has been translated into Russian and Arabic. His book, The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey, was published by Financial Times Prentice Hall in the fall of 2001, and has been translated into Chinese. He also wrote, with my former student, Charles L. Hooper, Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Chicago Park Press, 2006). It has been translated into Japanese and Korean. He also writes a regular column, “The Wartime Economist,” for www.antiwar.com.
Prof. Chandran Kukathas, London School of Economics: Can we be free in a nation state?
Chandran Kukathas holds the Chair in Political Theory in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. He was formerly the Neal Maxwell Professor of Political Theory at the University of Utah. He has also taught at the Australian National University and the Australian Defence Force Academy (University of New South Wales). He is the author of The Liberal Archipelago (Oxford University Press 2003) and Hayek and Modern Liberalism (Oxford University Press 1989).
Prof. Timur Kuran, Duke University: Economic interventionism in Middle Eastern states.
Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. His research focuses on social change, including the evolution of preferences and institutions. He is the author of The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2011), which explores the role that Islam played in the economic rise of the Middle East and, subsequently, in the institutional stagnation that accompanied the region’s slip into a state of underdevelopment. Some of the archival work on which this book was based has been published as a ten-volume bi-lingual set entitled Kadı Sicilleri Işığında 17. Yüzyıl İstanbul’unda Ekonomik Yaşam / Economic Life in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, as Reflected in Court Registers. (Is Bank, 2010-11). Among Kuran’s earlier publications are Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Harvard University Press, 1995) and Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Princeton University Press, 2004), each translated into several languages, including Turkish. He is at work on a book concerning the role that Islam has played in the Middle east’s political development.
Leon Louw, Free Market Foundation: Are multinational states more conducive to individual liberty than nation states?
Leon Louw is a well known South African personality who, for over a generation, has been active in diverse aspects of public life. He is credited with having had a significant impact on the course of events in South Africa, especially regarding the extensive economic reforms that have took place during the last two decades of apartheid. He has received numerous international awards, and, with his wife, Frances Kendall, has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Presently he is the Executive Director of the Free Market Foundation (FMF) and of the Law Review Project (LRP).
Leon co-authored South Africa: The Solution and Let the People Govern – both of which had a significant impact on the constitutional process. SA: The Solution has been republished in various countries, including the USA and Canada, as After Apartheid, the Solution for the South Africa. Many of the authors’ specific proposals for the post-apartheid constitution were incorporated in South Africa’s new constitution, despite having been almost uniformly dismissed at the time of publication.
Leon has spoken and lectured in 30 countries, and has been a guest speaker for many of the world’s most prestigious organisations. He has given guest lectures or debated with scholarly opponents at all of South Africa’s universities, and has been consulted by many corporations, political parties and governments (directly or through the FMF, he has been consulted by various governments including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, Zambia, Russia (Yakut), China, Hong Kong, Malta, Malawi and Swaziland; he also assisted government advisors informally in Ghana, Hungary, Mauritius, Surinam and former Czechoslovakia). Leon has also played a key role in the establishment of half a dozen of South Africa’s most respected institutes and NGOs.
Small and micro business, and black economic empowerment, have been Leon’s principle interest throughout his public life. He has been intimately involved with and a prominent activist for organised and informal SMMEs, starting with the fledgling National African Federation of Chambers of Commerce (NAFCOC) and Johannesburg Street Vendors in the late 1960s. Much of his life presently is spent with grassroots black communities in tribal areas and inner cities, fighting for their right to trade freely and own the land they occupy.
Prof Julian Morris, Reason Foundation: Liberty and International Law.
Julian Morris is Vice President for Research at the Reason Foundation, a non-profit think tank advancing free minds and free markets, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Buckingham. Julian has degrees in economics and law and is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and the editor of several books. His personal research focuses on the relationship between institutions, economic development and environmental protection and he co-edits the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (www.ejsd.org), which has a similar focus. Before joining Reason, Julian was Executive Director of International Policy Network (www.policynetwork.net), which he co-founded. Before that, he ran the environment and technology programme at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Prof. Bican Sahin, Hacettepe University: Toleration and diversity in the nation state.
Bican Sahin is associate professor of political science in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Hacettepe University. He is also the President of Association for Liberal Thinking. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003. His dissertation title is “An Investigation of the Contributions of Plato and Aristotle to the Development of the Concept of Toleration.” Among his research topics are ancient and modern political thought, classical liberal and libertarian philosophy, the relation between liberal democracy and Islam, the relationships between state and civil society in Turkey. Some of his most recent publications are
Toleration: The Liberal Virtue, Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010.
“Tolerating the Muslims in Germany: Between Enlightened Exclusion and Conscientious Inclusion”, (with Dr. Nezahat Altuntas), Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2009, Vol. 29 no. 1, pp. 27-41.
“Toleration, Political Liberalism, and Peaceful Coexistence in the Muslim World,” The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, vol. 24, no.1, Winter 2007, pp-1-24;
“The Principle of Self-Interest Properly Understood in Virtuous Polity,” Boğaziçi Journal: Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Vol. 20, Number 1-2 (2006).
Prof. Razeen Sally, London School of Economics: The WTO:global liberator or regulator?
Razeen Sally is Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, now Europe’s leading trade-policy think tank, which he co-founded in 2006. He is also on the faculty of the London School of Economics, where he also received his PhD. He has held adjunct teaching, research and advisory positions at universities and think tanks in the USA, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Razeen Sally’s research and teaching focuses on global trade policy and Asia in the world economy. He has written extensively on the WTO, FTAs, and on different aspects of trade policy in Asia. He has also written on the history of economic ideas, especially the theory of commercial policy. He has consulted for governments, international organisations and businesses in Europe and Asia, comments regularly on international economic issues in the media.
Prof. James Tooley, Newcastle University: Private v state provision of education.
Professor James Tooley is director of the E. G. West Centre at Newcastle University. He has held a number of teaching and research posts around the world, including at the Universities of Oxford, Simon Fraser University and University of the Western Cape; his first job was a mathematics high school teacher in Zimbabwe.
His book The Beautiful Tree: a personal journey into how the world’s poorest are educating themselves, (Penguin, New Delhi) was on the best-seller lists in India in 2010, and won the 2010 Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Prize. It builds on his ground-breaking research on private education for the poor in India, China and Africa, for which he was awarded gold prize in the first International Finance Corporation, Financial Times Private Sector Development Competition. He was founding president of the Education Fund, Orient Global, living in Hyderabad, India for two years, where he created a chain of low cost private schools. Since then he has helped set up educational companies in China and Ghana, with a further company in India.
Dr Michael Wohlgemuth: The boundaries of the state.
PD Dr. Michael Wohlgemuth is an economist and Managing Research Associate at the Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg. He received his Ph.D. at Jena University and his “Habilitation” at the Private University of Witten/Herdecke.
Wohlgemuth has been lecturer at the Universities of Freiburg, Erfurt, Friedrichshafen and Witten/Herdecke, Research Fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Economics in Jena, Affiliate Assistant Professor at George Mason University and New York University and “Friedrich August von Hayek-Professor” at the University of Innsbruck. In 2010, Wohlgemuth was the first recipient of the “Ordo-“ award in 2010.
Wohlgemuth is member of the Mont Pèlerin Society, the International Joseph Schumpeter Society, the European Public Choice Society, the Hayek-Gesellschaft and many more.
Main Research areas and publications in the fields of New Institutional Economics, Austrian Economics, Public Choice Theory, and the History of Ideas. Policy recommendations mainly in the fields of European integration and reforms of German policy making procedures.
For more details see http://www.eucken.de/mitarbeiter/wohlgemuth.htm
Some “Hayekian” Publications include:
The Communicative Character of Capitalistic Competition. A Hayekian Response to the Habermasian Challenge, The Independent Review, Vol. X (1), Summer 2005, 83-115.
Learning through institutional competition, in: Andreas Bergh and Rolf Höijer (eds.): Institutional Competition, Cheltenham 2008: Edward Elgar, 67-89
Democracy and Opinion Falsification, Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 13 (3), 2002, 223 – 246.
Evolutionary Approaches to Politics, KYKLOS, Vol. 55 (2), 2002, 223-246.
Political Entrepreneurship and Bidding for Political Monopoly, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol.10, 2000, 273-296.
Has John Roemer Resurrected Market Socialism?, The Independent Review, Vol. 2, 1997, 201-224