Webinar: The End of the Liberal World Order: What Comes Next for the Baltic States?

Volodymyr Dubovyk is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies, Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University (Ukraine). He has conducted research at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1997, 2006-2007), at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (2002), taught at the University of Washington (Seattle) in 2013 and at St. Edwards university/University of Texas (Austin) in 2016-17. He is the co-author of “Ukraine and European Security” (Macmillan, 1999) and has published numerous articles on US-Ukraine relations, regional and international security, and Ukraine’s foreign policy. His areas of expertise include Ukraine, Transatlantic Relations, U.S., and Black Sea security.

Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a political scientist, China scholar, Head of the Doctoral Program in Political Science and the Center for Chinese Studies at Riga Stradiņš University, Head of the Asia Program at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, member of the China in Europe Research Network (CHERN) and the European Think Tank Network on China (ETNC). After defending her PhD on Traditional Chinese Discourse, she served as a Senior Visiting Research Scholar at Fudan University School of Philosophy in Shanghai, China and as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for East Asia Studies. Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a European China Policy Fellow at MERICS and a Fellow of the Lau Institute at King’s College, London.

Dr. Bērziņa-Čerenkova publishes on PRC political discourse, contemporary Chinese ideology, EU-China relations, Russia and BRI; her most recent monograph is Perfect Imbalance: China and Russia (World Scientific, 2022). She is currently working as a fellow of the Academy of International Affairs NRW on an anthology on the political discourse in China.

Andres Kasekamp is the Elmar Tampõld Chair of Estonian Studies and Professor of History at the University of Toronto since 2017. Previously, he was Professor of Baltic Politics at the University of Tartu and Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute. He gained his PhD in modern history from University College London in 1996. His first book was The Radical Right in Interwar Estonia (Macmillan 2000). His second book, A History of the Baltic States (Palgrave 2018, 2nd ed.), has been translated into nine languages. His research interests include populist radical right parties and cooperation and conflict in the Baltic Sea region. His work has been awarded the Estonian National Science Prize (humanities) and the Baltic Assembly Prize (science), and he is an honorary fellow of the Baltic Defence College. Prof. Kasekamp has served as the editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies, and as the President of AABS (2018-2020). He has appeared as an expert in the foreign affairs committee of the parliaments of Canada, Estonia, Finland and the European Union, as well as the Baltic Assembly.

He also serves as the Counsel to the Board of Directors of the AABS, advising the Board on planning and strategizing the future development of AABS.

Ambassador Charles Shapiro has held numerous senior positions including Ambassador to Venezuela and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere. Shapiro’s other foreign postings include Chile, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago and Denmark, in addition to a variety of Washington assignments including Coordinator for Cuban Affairs.

From 2011-2013 Shapiro was the president of the Institute of the Americas, a think tank at the University of California San Diego. There he led two policy trips to Cuba.

At State Department, Shapiro educated and informed U.S. audiences about the potential benefits of free trade agreements with Central America, Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea. He is convinced that the three nations of North America must recognize that there is one North American economy and that we must reduce impediments to cross border supply chains.

Shapiro has worked with governments, businesses, and development agencies to increase access to credit for marginalized groups, foster entrepreneurship and small business growth, and encourage job creation to reduce poverty and strengthen stable democracies. He is the former President of the World Affairs Council of Atlanta.

Jörg Hackmann (PhD, Free University Berlin) is Alfred Döblin Professor at the Department of History, University of Szczecin, Poland, and since 2021 Director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Szczecin. He is also associated with the University of Greifswald, Germany, and serves as Vice-President of the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council (Germany). Jörg Hackmann holds a PhD from the Free University Berlin and received his habilitation at Greifswald University. He has been a visiting scholar at many universities in the Baltic sea region as well as in Chicago. Publications focus on the history of North-Eastern and East Central Europe, in particular on historiography, memory cultures, civil society and regionalisms with a focus on transnational entanglements. Most recent publications include Geselligkeit in Nordosteuropa (Sociability in North-Eastern Europe), Harrassowitz 2020. Current research interests include the role of history in Baltic Sea region building, a biography of Werner Hasselblatt, and the Jewish topography of (German) Szczecin.

He served as President-Elect of AABS from 2022–2024 and currently serves as President of AABS.