The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and the Return of the Near East

On 4 June 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a book seminar with journalist and Middle East Eye correspondent Sean Matthews on his new book, The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and the Return of the Near East. Chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of South East European Studies at Oxford, the event explored Matthews's central argument that Greece is being reabsorbed into the Near East after a century of westward orientation.

Matthews opened with a reading from the book's epilogue, reflecting on his family's roots on the island of Oinousses. Through his great-grandfather's changing nationality on ship manifests—from Ottoman subject to Greek citizen—he illustrated how the collapse of empires reshaped identities. Greece, he argued, has long occupied a frontier between East and West, and that dividing line is becoming increasingly blurred. He noted that older travel writers readily situated Greece within the wider Near East and recalled that the United States treated Greece as part of its Near East portfolio until 1974.

He outlined three reasons why Greece matters beyond its borders: it was the first nation-state to emerge from the Ottoman Empire, the first site of sustained Western intervention in the region, and a key marker of the decline of the cosmopolitan order inherited from the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. The book's title, he explained, reflects the continuity between those empires and the hybrid cultural space they created.

Can cultural life thrive under authoritarianism? Evidence from Greece, 1970–1973

On 7 May 2026, SEESOX  hosted a seminar on the relationship between authoritarian rule and cultural creativity. Chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of SEESOX, who also served as discussant, the seminar featured Stathis Kalyvas, Gladstone Professor of Government and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, presenting his recent Greek-language book Big Bang 1970–1973. Best known for his work on civil war and political violence, Kalyvas turned to the cultural life of the Greek military dictatorship to ask a broader question: is the absence of freedom necessarily suppressive of culture?

Kalyvas began by observing that the answer is far from obvious. One intuition holds that repression stifles cultural life; another that hardship drives people to seek refuge in culture. The empirical record is mixed, with much richer cultural life in Brazil than in Pinochet's Chile, in Czechoslovakia than in East Germany, and in Iran than in North Korea. Greece under the Colonels (1967–1974)—the last successful military coup in Europe, launched by colonels against their own generals and ultimately undone by the Cyprus crisis and the Turkish invasion of 1974—is conventionally remembered as a "cultural desert". According to the standard narrative, the regime cut short the cultural renaissance of the early 1960s, forcing creativity underground into indirect resistance, symbolised by two émigré figures, the composer Mikis Theodorakis and the actress Melina Mercouri. Kalyvas structured his talk around four questions: whether there was high-quality cultural production under the dictatorship; if so, what explains it; why this has been forgotten; and why it matters.

His central claim was that the dictatorship was far from homogeneous. The first phase, from 1967 to 1969, broadly matched the conventional picture: a period of cultural "silence", with many established figures in self-imposed exile and writers refusing to publish. From 1969, however, a marked relaxation produced what he termed the "big bang". A key institutional change was the replacement of pre-emptive censorship, under which every work required approval before publication, with suppressive censorship, which allowed publication but exposed producers to penalties afterwards. Counter-intuitively, this emboldened artists. Kalyvas stressed that the existence of censorship should not be confused with its effectiveness. Censorship had a long pre-dictatorial history, functioned imperfectly like any bureaucracy, and often involved bargaining, with artists deliberately sacrificing some provocative material to preserve what mattered most.

Beyond Binaries: Contesting Pluralisms in Turkish Politics

On 17 June 2025, SEESOX closed its term with a seminar chaired by Othon Anastasakis. The event featured Associate Professor Nora Fisher-Onar, Chair of Global Studies at the University of San Francisco, who introduced her new book on Turkey’s “plural realities” and argued that conventional binary frames—East versus West, secular versus religious—obscure more than they explain.

Fisher-Onar began by explaining how conventional “either/or” frames—East versus West, secularist versus religious—distort our understanding of Turkey. She showed how cover images from The Economist, The Guardian and Der Spiegel rely on binary tropes (a bridge between continents, a covered versus an uncovered woman), whereas her book’s quilted-textile cover from Antalya’s open-air markets captures Turkey’s kaleidoscopic diversity. Those hard binaries, she argued, simplify causal complexity in political science, misguide policy towards Muslim-majority states (by backing whichever authoritarian model seems “our ally”) and fuel Islamophobia and right-wing populism at home.

Laying out her three-part structure—Theory, History and Twenty-First Century—Fisher-Onar described Chapter 1’s survey of three waves of Turkish pluralist thought: early Republican social engineering, mid-century democratisation that welcomed diverse societal energies, and a third wave of area-studies scholars crafting truly comparative approaches. In Chapter 2 she offered a new “complex-systems” key to politics, treating Turkey as a system defined by interacting parameters—ideas (normative repertoires), actors (strategic performers) and structures (from electoral laws to global power balances). Rather than isolating single causes, this lens traces how emergent coalitions—shifting alliances of pluralists and anti-pluralists—drive critical junctures.

From Anti-Americanism to Americanofilia: The United States in the kaleidoscope of Greek society

On 3 June 2025, SEESOX hosted an illuminating symposium entitled “From Anti-Americanism to Americanofilia: The United States in the Kaleidoscope of Greek Society.” Over the course of the afternoon, Lamprini Rori, Assistant Professor of Political Analysis at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Eirini Karamouzi, Associate Professor of Contemporary History and International Relations at the American College of Greece, presented preliminary findings from their joint research project. Their remarks were followed by commentary from Paul Betts (St Antony’s College, Oxford) and Dimitris Papadimitriou (University of Manchester). Together, they charted fifty years of Greek attitudes towards the United States, weaving together party politics, public opinion, media analysis and the performative rituals of state visits.

Dr Rori commenced with a mass-level perspective, demonstrating that Greek public opinion—drawn from Eurobarometer, MRP and national surveys—remained net negative towards the United States throughout the 1980s and 1990s, only tipping into mildly favourable territory in 2022. She highlighted a striking pattern of elite–mass convergence and divergence: in the 1980s both voters and party elites shared similarly anti-American sentiments; in the 1990s, elites became noticeably more pro-American than the electorate; in the 2000s, the public adopted scepticism aligned with the left-wing parties; and in the 2010s, citizens moderated their stance more rapidly than party leadership. Until the mid-1990s, ideological self-placement and party vote were strong predictors of attitudes to the US; after the financial crash, however, these factors lost explanatory power, leaving only pro-European orientation and attitudes towards Russia as significant correlates.

Europe and the Black Sea regional (in)security A story of Mutual Creation?

On 13 May 2025, SEESOX convened a seminar on Black Sea security and regional order. The event was chaired by Othon Anastasakis. The panel comprised Galip Dalay, Coordinator of the SEESOX Contemporary Programme, and Senior Consulting Fellow and Turkey expert at Chatham House; Natalie Sabanadze, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House; Nigel Gould-Davies, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Keir Giles, Senior Consulting Fellow at Chatham House; and Ian Lesser, Distinguished Fellow and Adviser to the President at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, who joined online. Together they assessed how Russia’s assertive policies, NATO’s evolving posture, and Turkey’s strategic balancing act are reshaping the security and normative landscape of the Black Sea basin.

Galip Dalay began by warning that Western focus on Ukraine has obscured the wider region’s agency. He argued that the Cold War–style emphasis on great-power projection—exemplified by Russia’s attempts to exclude other actors from the Black Sea—undermines the principle of regional ownership that underpins sustainable order. Moscow’s two decades of naval expansion and its denial of littoral states’ agency have in fact provoked complementary trends: a drive towards deeper European political and economic integration among coastal states, and renewed interest in small-scale cooperation projects, such as trilateral initiatives between Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. For Dalay, Ukraine must remain a Black Sea power if it is to prevent a Russian monopoly; without Ukrainian naval capability, he cautioned, Russia will effectively transform the basin into its own “inland sea” and project influence into the global South via grain diplomacy and normative agendas.

The second Trump Administration: Implications for South East Europe

On 12 March, 2025, SEESOX hosted a seminar exploring the potential trajectory of U.S. foreign policy under a second Trump administration, with a particular focus on Europe, the Western Balkans, and Turkey. The panel featured Joan Hoey, Editor of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s flagship annual Democracy Index; Oana Lungescu, the longest-serving NATO Spokesperson and Romanian journalist; and Daniel Dombey, Executive News Editor at the Financial Times. The discussion was chaired by Othon Anastasakis.

Joan Hoey opened the seminar by characterising Donald Trump’s primary focus as domestic reconstruction rather than foreign affairs. According to Hoey, Trump’s overarching objective is to consolidate domestic governance and authority, rather than to seek international legitimacy through foreign policy exploits. Nonetheless, this inward focus will inevitably shape his approach abroad—particularly his determination to curtail overseas commitments that deplete U.S. resources.

Hoey emphasised that Trump is serious about negotiating an end to conflicts such as the Russo-Ukrainian War, aiming to prevent further crises that could entangle the United States. In regions like the Balkans, the administration would likely move away from the political engineering efforts seen under President Biden, instead prioritising stability and the containment of Russian and Chinese influence.

Although the Balkans may not initially be a high priority, Hoey suggested they could re-emerge on Washington’s agenda, especially given factors such as Trump Jr.’s business interests in Serbia and wider Eastern Europe, and Elon Musk’s engagement with Romania’s elections. Bilateral relations would likely be elevated, but through a transactional lens—Balkan leaders would be expected to align with U.S. preferences in areas such as energy and defence procurement.

Montenegro: Next EU's member state?

“Partnership with the EU is more important today than ever, especially in light of geopolitical challenges”

President of Montenegro Jakov Milatović held a lecture at the European Studies Centre, St Antony's College at the prestigious University of Oxford, where he discussed with professors and students about Montenegro’s European future. The President emphasized that “the future of Montenegro and the Western Balkans is in an integrated Europe, based on common values ​​and interests, and emphasized that Montenegro’s membership in the EU is not just a technical process, but an opportunity to improve the quality of life of all our citizens by strengthening the rule of law, building an efficient public administration, achieving economic progress, ensuring equal opportunities for all and establishing zero tolerance for corruption.

“When I took office as President, I set an ambitious but achievable goal – for Montenegro to become the 28th member of the European Union by 2028. If you believe in what you are doing and work hard for that goal, it will be achieved,” said President Milatović. He recalled Montenegro’s strengths and its commitment to European values, the country is fully aligned with the EU’s foreign policy, uses the euro as its currency and is actively implementing reforms in the area of ​​the rule of law.