Abstracts
(in the language of the papers)
Christoph Boyer (Lehrstuhl
für Europäische Zeitgeschichte, Universität Salzburg)
Über Nutzen und Nachteil von Netzwerktheorien
für die Geschichtswissenschaften
Netzwerktheorien sind aus den technischen Disziplinen und aus der allgemeinen
Systemtheorie, aus den Naturwissenschaften, aus Ökonomie und Soziologie
zunehmend auch in die Geschichtswissenschaft "hineingewandert".
Die einschlägige Forschung hat sich in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten
stark verdichtet und ausdifferenziert; sie hat damit allerdings auch eine
"Modewelle" hervorgerufen. Häufig wird, gerade in kulturwissenschaftlichen
Forschungskontexten, der Netzwerk-Begriff vage und ausufernd, metaphorisch
oder mit unreflektiert-normativer Färbung verwendet (Netzwerk als
"gute", weil angeblich nichthierarchische Form der Vergesellschaftung)
oder als theoretischer Passepartout überschätzt.
Erforderlich ist deshalb eine Prüfung der Leistungskraft des Konzepts sine ira et studio - zum einen als Kategorie der Beschreibung, zum anderen als Explanans in weitergreifenden theoretischen Kontexten. Netzwerke werden dabei aufgefasst als spezifische Agenturen der Vergesellschaftung, angesiedelt zwischen Markt und Hierarchie, mit "mittlerem" Grad der "Formalität" und Stabilität. Grundlage der Vernetzung ist die Ressource "Vertrauen", (Selbst-) Organisationsprinzip ist die Horizontalität lose gekoppelter Akteure. Netzwerke erbringen, so die These, eine spezifische Variante von Kommunikations-, Ordnungs- und Steuerungsleistungen; generell dienen sie eher der Kontingenzbewältigung bzw. der ad-hoc-Kompensation von Markt- bzw. Organisationsversagen als strategischer Langzeitplanung.
Die Prüfung der Tauglichkeit dieses Konzepts bzw. Theorems (auch der theoretische Status wird präziser zu bestimmen sein) soll sowohl generell wie auch speziell, d.h. im Blick auf die Geschichtswissenschaft erfolgen. Anders gefragt: Welche historischen Entitäten sind mit Gewinn als Netzwerke konzeptualisierbar? Zu prüfen ist dies sowohl auf der Mikro-Ebene (z.B. zwischenbetriebliche Beziehungen, in sozialen Milieus) wie auch auf der Makro-Ebene (Netzwerke etwa als spezifische Form der Organisation politischer Macht). Im Blick auf das Konferenzthema wird der Brauchbarkeit des Konzepts in über- und transnationalen Kontexten spezielles Augenmerk gewidmet.
Ariel Colonomos (CNRS/Centre
d'études et de recherches internationales, Paris)
"Normativists in Boots": Lawyers and Ethicists in the Military
War making has several unexpected outcomes.
Among them, the development of a new kind of expertise in the field of
law and ethics: "normativists in boots", lawyers and ethicists,
who are "embedded" with the different corpses of the US military.
These professionals produce their own expertise, ultimately they help
the State and the military to justify their use of force and they prevent
lawsuits and moral bashing from altering the State's margin of maneuver.
These "national" (or nationalistic) networks focus on the definition
of international justice. They are confronted to other normativists, transnational
activists that operate within civil society and network transnationaly
and most often belong to the human rights community. What is the outcome
of this clash of virtues? Does the State have the "upper hand"
in norms making? Does this interaction favor the development of new rules
of war more adapted to the current situation of asymmetrical warfare?
Josef Ehmer & Annemarie
Steidl (Institut für Wirtschafts- und
Sozialgeschichte, Universität Wien)
Networks in the history of migrations
The concept of "networks" has been
widely used in recent historical studies of migration. Usually it concerns
personal relations among migrants as well as between migrants and non-migrants
on a local, regional and trans-national level. The concept appears particularly
fruitful in respect to temporary labour migrations of the early modern
period. The paper discusses networks in some wide-spread early modern
types of migration such as seasonal labour migration, peddling, transhumance,
drove, and tramping systems of journeymen. The focus is on the respective
basic social relations within networks, such as family and kinship, common
local or regional origin, ethnicity and religion, as well as institutions
such as guilds.
Therese Garstenauer (Institut
für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Universität Wien)
Transnational networks: Im/Possibilities of Exchange
between Soviet and 'Western' scholars
My paper deals with mutual reception, transfer and exchange between Soviet
and 'Western' scholars (mainly social scientists and historians) in the
1960s – 1980s. Soviet social sciences were reinstated in the late
1950s after a break of about 30 years. There was interest in communicating
with the international scholarly community, but it was only feasible under
specific conditions. I will ask in how far international exchange was
possible at all, with what opportunities and impediments. I will investigate
these questions by performing citation analyses (especially with regard
to the appearance of ‘Western’ authors in Soviet publications),
analyses of participation in international conferences, joint publications
and research projects. The basis for this analysis are contemporary publications
as wall as (auto)biographical writings of and about Soviet scholars. Apart
from my concrete research focus, I would like to tackle the question if
networks are useful as exploratory and explanatory tools for studies in
history of science.
Giuliana Gemelli (Dipartimento
di Discipline Storiche, Università di Bologna)
Academic networks as drivers of European
scientific integration: the role of the Ford Foundation in shaping the
agenda of political sciences
In the framework of the Ford Foundation's policies
in Europe during the softer phase of the Cold war, the creation of research
networks was considered a crucial complement to the narrow and formalistic
training that dominated educational programs in European universities
and a basic framework to enhance the circulation of new talents in the
European continent. The aim was to produce fresh research and increase
not only the link between European and American institutions but also
among European scholars and academic networks. The goal was also the creation
of effective links between intellectuals, administrators and political
representatives in the European countries as drivers of integration and
dissemination of a new agenda whose aim was the dissemination of a new
paradigm in political and social sciences as well as the lowering of the
role of "old" elites of power, particularly lawyers. Traditionally
in Europe as well as in other parts of the world lawyers were the main
players in the relations between academic and political power.
This goal emerged in the Ford Foundation's agenda after a period of attempts
– and to some extent confusing experiments – to attract European
intellectual and professional elite through the diffusion of values which
were typical of the warmest phase of the cold war. The Fifties were the
period during which American Foundations started to play the role of attractors
vis-à-vis a new emerging elite of social and academic scholars
and scientific entrepreneurs who identified the American models with the
process of modernisation of European societies after World War II.
The paper will analyze comparatively the opportunities and the constraints
in the emerging role of epistemic communities with a specific focus on
political and social sciences, using the American Foundations grant-making
policies as a "window" to analyze the behaviour of the institutional
actors.
Markus Kaiser (Department
for Comparative Sociology, Faculty of Sociology, State University of St.
Petersburg)
Networks of Local and Global Experts in
Development: Epistemic Machineries in a Global Context
Networks of local and global experts constitute
a new figuration of global knowledge in societal change, development
and transition inducing development through the access to knowledge. A
new global knowledge architecture is emerging. Knowledge has become
a decisive and competitive resource for local and global development,
especially since the paradigm 'knowledge for development' was
set off and promoted by the World Bank in 1998/99. Development organisations
and development experts are central actors in producing and steering global
knowledge by using novel management structures.
The new knowledge networks evolve on the basis of modern Information and
Communication Technology (ICT). The technologically supported social networks
help to bridge the knowledge gap between developing as well as countries
in transition and industrial countries by closing the knowledge and digital
divide. Development experts being located in the various regions of the
world have established a transnational epistemic community and play a
strategic role in knowledge sharing. Within its electronic modification,
knowledge is moderated, codified and standardized to facilitate distribution
and possible acquisition. Experts formerly working in the global South
moved on to the countries in transition bringing in the global concepts
as for example market behaviour, business plan development and
global (training) tools like CEFE (Competency based Economy Formation
of Enterprises).
The culture of planning and of knowledge production within development
organisations is gradually changing. A homogenisation of knowledge in
development cooperation takes place while paying attention only to consumable
local knowledge esp. in countries in transition. Locally learned experiences
are brought in and validated by the lessons learned and evaluation
machinery in an unchallenged project or programme context. Disturbing
news or experiences or voices are ignored and in the context of countries
in transition often devalued as Soviet, as old knowledge. However, the
plurality of local cultures continues to persist.
Maria Mesner (Stiftung
Bruno Kreisky Archiv, Wien)
Global Population Policy: Emergence, Function
and Development of a Network
In using the Rockefeller philanthropy and the Ford Foundation as case
studies my presentation traces down the development of the "population"
network, identifies the various actors' motivating attitudes and tenets
as well as their strategies to achieve their ends. By focusing on ruptures
and contradictions within philanthropic foundations as well as between
foundations and other groups I will ask how the networks adapted to a
changing environment. I will discuss the preconditions for the shift in
paradigms which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s and will scrutinize the
links and relations between groups of actors which made the population
network viable and functioning.
Jean-Baptiste Meyer (Institut
de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France)
Diaspora Knowledge Networks: New Social Entities,
New Policies
The diaspora knowledge networks (DKN) – associations of highly skilled
expatriates willing to contribute to the development of their origin countries
– have emerged in the 1990s. They provide a new option with regards
to 3 policy areas: Innovation/S&T, Migration and Development/Cooperation,
for both the North and South.
A new actor in the recent and developing transnational arena, DKNs have
been received with some suspicions, doubts and even criticisms on their
real, effective ability to perform a development role.
Recent evidence convincingly dismisses excessively sceptical approaches
and shows the actual and potential importance of such kind of networks.
They are numerous and many of these, especially in Asian cases, have had
an outstanding positive effect. A survey of existing visible DKN and historical
analysis on the Indian IT growth and expansion do show the original and
irreplaceable developmental action of these networks.
However, the experience also shows the erratic activities, limited results
and precarious life of many DKN. This fact does question the dynamics
of such networks: do they have autonomous effects or are they strictly
context dependent? What are the market and/or policy impacts on their
developments?
This presentation draws on the history of intellectual networks and of
transnational academic connections as well as on diaspora studies. It
also uses concepts of the actor/network sociology to explore the way that
action shapes the context and therefore results of transnational activities
and relations in the making.
In the process of building sustainable diaspora networks, traditional
entities – such as state, national organisations, public local institutions
as well as firms, NGOs and intergovernmental organisations – may
be involved. They can find there a new field of expansion and the reproducibility
of some DKN' successes is a challenge for all.
Johannes Paulmann (Historisches Institut,
Universität Mannheim)
National, international, transnational:
Umrisse einer Kritik der transnationalen Ökumene
Die Allgegenwärtigkeit des Transnationalen in
der aktuellen Geschichtswissenschaft fordert zu einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung
heraus. Die Bezeichnung "transnational" wird häufig austauschbar
mit anderen Begriffen benutzt: international, kosmopolitisch, weltumspannend
oder global. Oder sie dient lediglich als attraktive Bezeichnung, mit
deren Hilfe "irgendwie" grenzüberschreitende Phänomene
als bedeutsam markiert werden sollen.
Der Vortrag zeigt im ersten Teil die verschiedenen Wege, die in die transnationale
Geschichtsschreibung geführt haben. In Deutschland waren dabei andere
Forschungsbereiche maßgeblich als in der außerdeutschen Geschichtsschreibung.
Der Beitrag erläutert, warum der scheinbar neue Zugang auf viele
Gruppen und Richtungen so anziehend wirkte. Eine Rolle spielten Gegenwartserfahrungen,
wissenschaftspolitische Positionen und historiographische Debatten. Nicht
zuletzt erwies sich auch gerade die unscharfe Begrifflichkeit als Vorteil.
Der zweite Teil des Vortrags zeichnet die Umrisse einer Kritik an der
transnationalen Ökumene. Manche Historiker stehen dem Transnationalen
grundsätzlich skeptisch gegenüber, weil sie den Nationalstaat
für den entscheidenden lebensgeschichtlichen Bezugsrahmen halten.
Weniger prinzipielle Kritiker helfen durch ihre Einwände, die Grenzen
einer transnationalen Geschichtsschreibung zu bestimmen. Diese liegen
zum einen darin, dass der gewählte Zugang die Analysekategorien mehrfach
vorbestimmt. Ferner bleibt das Verhältnis zu den Bereichen ungeklärt,
die nicht transnational determiniert waren. Schließlich muss über
die historischen Narrationen reflektiert werden, in die transnationale
Erscheinungen eingeordnet werden.
Der dritte Abschnitt stellt Möglichkeiten vor, wie soziales Handeln
in Bereichen jenseits der Nationalstaaten untersucht werden kann. Ein
besonderes Anliegen ist es, die Mikroebene der Akteure mit den strukturellen
Bedingungen in sogen. Grenzräumen systematisch zu verbinden. Ob es
so gelingt, eine überzeugende transnationale Geschichte zu schreiben,
muss die Praxis zeigen.
Dieter Plehwe (Social
Science Research Centre Berlin, Department Internationalization and Organization)
The transnational neoliberal Mont Pèlerin
Society network of intellectuals and think tanks and transnational discourse
structuration: Revisiting the "Washington Consensus"
"Washington Consensus" (WC) politics emphasizing fiscal restraint,
privatization, deregulation, and financial liberalization during the 1990s
are frequently considered to reflect the imposing power of Washington
based global financial institutions, and ultimately of the United States
as the remaining superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Debt
ridden Latin American governments are remembered to by and large have
had to operate under conditions of increasingly severe external constraints,
which left them with no alternative to open their economies up to the
global market, and with few opportunities to influence the harsh conditionality
attached to international lending during and after the "lost decade"
of the 1980s. The new policy agenda led to rapid de-nationalization of
public sectors and domestic economies in support of corporate globalization,
and to rising unemployment and poverty in many countries. Following the
Zapatista up rise against NAFTA in 1994, a growing opposition against
corporate globalization blamed rapidly increasing inequality in Latin
America on the WC priorities, which were held to epitomize Western neoliberalism,
expressive of the hegemonic interests of the North, and the United States
and her giant corporations in particular. Although such a perspective
captures some (state centred) dimensions of the prevailing hierarchy in
the power relations between the North and the South in general, and between
the U.S. and Latin America in particular, a closer examination of the
transnational neoliberal networks of intellectuals and the discourse coalition
sustaining the WC yields a more comprehensive perspective. The intellectual
and political responsibilities for WC politics are shared by Southern
domestic and by transnational social forces. A closer examination of the
transnational neoliberal discourse community and coalition suggests that
transnational networks of intellectuals and think tanks in particular
have yet to be understood as a powerfully institutionalized agency at
both supranational and national levels due to their transformative capacities
both in academic and policy research. The intellectual roots of the transnational
neoliberal discourse coalition sustaining WC politics can be traced to
the comprehensive neoliberal discourse community of the Mont Pèlerin
Society (MPS), a well organized global network of neoliberal intellectuals
and think tanks.
Sebastian Schüler
(Seminar für Allgemeine Religionswissenschaft, Westfälische
Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
Die Transnationalisierung globaler Heilsgüter
am Beispiel der pfingstlich-charismatischen International Church of the
Foursquare Gospel
Kulturelle, technische und ökonomische Globalisierungsprozesse des
20. Jahrhunderts, sowie gesellschaftliche Pluralisierungsprozesse von
Lebensstilen und Weltanschauungen haben auch den Blick auf 'Religion'
verändert. Die so genannte "Pentecostalization" kann als
Beispiel religiöser Globalisierung genannt werden. Spätestens
seit Max Weber umschreiben religionswissenschaftliche und kulturwissenschaftliche
Analysen von Religion Prozesse und Strategien der Transnationalisierung
mit Hilfe religionsökonomischer Theorien und Methoden. Glaubenssysteme
und religiöse Weltanschauungen können daher in Anschluss an
Pierre Bourdieu als Heilgüter verstanden und unter marktökonomischen
Bedingungen untersucht werden. Bestimmte konfessionelle Ausrichtungen
wirken wie Heilsprodukte oder sogar Marken, die vertrieben werden können
und dem gesellschaftlichen und individuellen Kontext angepasst werden
müssen.
In diesem Vortrag sollen Strategien der Vermarktung von Heilsgütern am Beispiel einer spezifischen pfingstlich-charismatischen Denomination (ICFG) in Geschichte und Gegenwart nachgegangen und dabei Spannungen des religiösen (und ökonomischen) Feldes im Prozess der Transnationalisierung ausgelotet werden. Religiöse Heilsgüter sind (oftmals und vor allem im evangelikalen Bereich) globale Produkte, die für einen globalen Markt (zur Errettung aller Menschen) bestimmt sind. Ähnlich wie bei Konsumgütern (globale Marken) müssen auch globale Heilsgüter vor Ort wieder relokalisiert werden, um sie dem spezifischen lokalen Markt anzupassen. Zunächst soll dieser These Rechnung getragen werden, indem Voraussetzungen und Verhältnisse von Orthodoxie und Heterodoxie am Beispiel der ICFG aufgezeigt werden. Ausgehend von religionsökonomischen Prozessen der Transnationalisierung sollen dann Konflikte im religiösen Feld ausgemacht werden, die das Verhältnis von lokalem Markt und globaler Marke beschreiben. Hierzu soll einigen Beispielen des Umgangs mit religiösen "Gütern" (Legitimation religiöser Sprache und Handlungen, Geistgaben, Devotionalien, religiöse Ausbildung, usw.) in unterschiedlichen religiösen und subkulturellen Milieus nachgegangen werden. Von weiterem Interesse ist dabei die Frage nach Strategien der Multiplikation und Ausbreitung religiöser Heilsgüter im transnationalen Raum. Wie also verstehen sich lokale Gemeinden als "Vorposten" neuer Gemeindegründungen in anderen Regionen und Nationen. Ebenfalls von Interesse scheint mir dabei die Rolle der christlich-charismatischen Identitäts- und Netzwerkbildung und die dabei entstehenden "inneren" und äußeren Aushandlungsprozesse und das pfingstlich vereinigende Selbstverständnis der Gläubigen in Bezug auf das globale wie lokale Feld. Der Prozess der Transnationalisierung von Heilgütern könnte daher anhand eines Dreischritts von der Entstehung einer globalen Heilsmarke über die Relokalisierung vor Ort und die erneute Translokalisierung unter globalen Prämissen beschrieben werden.
Michael Twaddle (Centre
of African Studies, University of London)
Chronologically, this paper attempts to cover
Indian migrational networks during the eras of
1. archaic globalization
2. free trade imperialism in the late eighteenth and for much of the nineteenth
centuries
3. European colonial administration in the late nineteenth century and
the first half of the twentieth century
4. the first years of national sovereignty in the 1960s and 1970s, and
5. the era of neo-liberal hegemony maintained by the Washington consensus.
Analytically, an attempt is also made to distinguish between structural
constraints upon migrational networks in East Africa and responses by
Indian migrants in each of these eras.
Kees van der Pijl (University
of Sussex)
Transnational Classes and the Structure of the
Global Political Economy
My argument in this contribution is based on the idea that the global
political economy since more than a century has evolved as a specific
spatial constellation combining at least two different state/society.
On the one hand, an originally Anglophone, integrated West made up of
states sharing a liberal constitution and allowing their societies a considerable
measure of self-regulation enshrined in civil law; on the other, a succession
of relatively strong states organising their societies from above (with
varying degrees of central planning and coercion). France, Germany, Japan
and Italy, and the USSR, have been such rivals, or contender states,
to the liberal West; China would be the key contender today.
Capital as mobile wealth competitively exploiting society and nature,
emerged as an extra-territorial social force in the context of the liberal,
'Lockean heartland'. It profited historically from the structural free
space and entry conditions prevailing in the Atlantic English-speaking
world; the West has all along pursued global liberalism and created the
spaces for capital to expand transnationally.
The global governance projected by the liberal West builds on the prior
experience with informal, flexible forms of class rule operating behind
the formal structures of parliamentary government. They were pioneered
in the British Commonwealth and transmitted to the English-speaking world
at large and to the European Union.
Terms like the West etc. are not empirical categories, let alone 'actors'.
They denote fields of action in which the actually directive social forces,
the ruling classes first of all, are constantly engaged in shaping a common
orientation and direction; it is not given. It must be elaborated as an
ideational constellation, what I call a 'comprehensive concept of control'
- a structural constraint supported by a particular configuration of classes
and fractions of classes galvanising themselves behind a common strategic
orientation, which then serves as the framework in which everybody defines
their 'interests'. As Max Weber famously put it, 'not ideas, but material
and ideal interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very frequently
the world-images that have been created by "ideas" have, like
switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by
the dynamic of interests'.
The process of establishing and renovating the hegemonic consensus of
the West is achieved through an infrastructure of informal networks, from
business boardrooms to the more prestigious planning bodies. These bring
together, in the private surroundings required to allow the expression
of differences, key statesmen, media managers, and other 'organic intellectuals'
of the transnational capitalist class. In the contemporary world, the
networks of interlocking directorates among the largest corporations,
as well as the Bilderberg Conferences, the Trilateral Commission, the
World Economic Forum, and a range of comparable bodies are active in this
sense. As Gramsci recognised, transnational class networks 'propose political
solutions of diverse historical origin, and assist their victory in particular
countries - functioning as international political parties which operate
within each nation with the full concentration of the international forces'.
In the paper I intend to develop one or more examples of how this actually
works around some topical issue when the time comes.