The Economics and Politics of The European Union

Eligibility

Any current student in good standing with an accredited university is eligible to apply. VMI students need only to submit an application. Cadets must have completed the application process and provided a $250 non-refundable deposit by 18 January 2019. Committed cadets must have paid program in full or signed promissory note by 15 February 2019.

Program Directors

LTC Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2006. She also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s Degree from Wittenberg University. She was previously an assistant professor at the Department of Public Policy at the Central European University and a visiting assistant professor at Washington and Lee University’s Economics Department. Her teaching and research focuses on economics of institutions, post-socialist economies and politics, economic history, and law and economics.

COL Srimayi (Tinni) B. Sen received her PhD in Economics from the University of Mississippi in 1999. She also holds a MSc. in Economics from Calcutta University in West Bengal, India and a BSc. from the Lady Brabourne College, Calcutta University, in West Bengal, India.

COL Howard Sanborn earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Iowa in 2009. He also received an M.A. in Political Science while at Iowa, and graduated with a B.A. in Politics from Washington and Lee University in June 2001. Since his appointment to the VMI faculty in 2008, COL Sanborn has taught classes about politics and governance in China and across East Asia, as well as on political economy and democratization. His research focuses on the evolution of support for democratic institutions; his published work evaluating regime transitions in both Asia and Europe has been featured in a number of preeminent political science journals, as well as mainstream outlets, such as the Washington Post and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He, himself, studied for several months in China as a graduate student in 2005, and has co-led study abroad trips to China (with VMI cadets) and the United Kingdom (for JMU).

Program Description

The program’s overarching theme is the role of formal and informal institutions in the economic and political development of the old and new members of the European Union (EU).

The program will start in Slovenia, one of the newer members of the European Union. Slovenia transitioned successfully from planned to market economy and to democracy in the 1990s. Slovenia became a member of the European Union in 2004; it joined the Monetary Union in 2007. Students will also travel to Germany, a founding member of the European Union, one of the key players in EU economics and politics, and arguably the most successful. While there, students will visit the EU Central Bank in Frankfurt. The program will end in Brussels, which is the de facto capital of the European Union, with visits to the EU parliament and NATO.

Room and Board

As part of the study abroad program cadets will visit Ljubljana, Celje, Bled, Postojna Jama, Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels and will conduct trips to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, to the European Central Bank, to the European Parliament, and to the NATO headquarters. Cadets will stay in hostels, hotels and at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, Belgium.