Category Archives: Humanities & Social Sciences
Us Now: Governance 2.0
“Us Now” is an interesting documentary about “the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.” (via) Although most examples are well known (at least among “political web 2.0 geeks” …), the film provides a good overview about different collaborative internet projects and how politics might change in the future: In a world in which [...]
Also posted in internet Tagged collaboration, documentary, governance, government 2.0, internet, social networking, video 1 Comment
How relevant is Political Science?
A short op-ed called “Scholars on the sideline” by Joseph Nye in the Washington Post kicked off an interesting (online) debate (read a reaction by Daniel Drezner here) on the relevance of political science/international relations for actual policy making. Nye writes in his article that “not too many top-ranked scholars of international relations are going [...]
The Seven Rules of Nationalism
Some food for thought (and some more lazy blogging). Via Ariel Zellman’s blog I came across this little gem which can be found in Stuart Kaufman’s Modern Hatred: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War A Beginner’s Guide to Ethnic Politics 1. If an area was ours for 500 years and yours for 50 years, it should [...]
Posted in Humanities & Social Sciences Tagged ethnic war, ethnicity, modern hatreds, nation, nationalism, symbolic politics, territory 1 Comment
Research on User Perceptions of EU website
Interesting piece of research on “how online experiences feed back into offline perceptions” in the case of the official europa.eu website which indeed has some potential for improvement regarding content, accessibility, participation and navigation. Some points are obvious, others quite surprising though: The hierarchical structure that relies on top-down decision processes often led to the [...]
Also posted in European Debate Tagged communicating Europe, communication, EU, europa.eu, internet, perceptions, web 4 Comments
Slavoj Žižek: Every state needs its own Balkan
“Every state needs its own Balkan” With this words philosopher Slavoj Žižek started his lecture on ideology and the fall of state borders. The lecture was given in Italian Gorizia which was until 2007 a border town with Slovenia and is a well known habitat of Italians and Slovenes. From this point of view, the [...]
Also posted in culture Tagged Balkans, borders, culture, Europe, ideology, Italy, Kusturica, multiculturalism, philosophy, Slavoj Žižek, Slovenia 4 Comments
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
Sunday afternoon – Some food for thought for the ‘elite education enthusiasts’ in Europe that always use the likes of Yale and Harvard as best practice examples! “Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers” writes William Deresiewicz in his article “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education“. [...]
Posted in Humanities & Social Sciences Tagged education, Education/Universities, Elite, Europe, society, University, USA 1 Comment
Russia: Corruption 'price list'
Corruption in Russia is neither a new development nor a surprising one. However, now even President Putin as well as his likely successor Medvedev mentioned the corruption problem in recent public speeches. Of course it is a bit awkward for Putin to admit that corruption has been flourishing during his term in office, so it [...]
Also posted in Eastern Europe Tagged bribery, corruption, Medvedev, politics, Putin, Russia, Russian Politics 3 Comments
Rewriting history
What is happening at the moment? History (or better the interpretation of history) is more and more used to justify political actions. Nothing really new, but somehow two recent statements were not only shocking but also worrying: First, the Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski used weird historic justifications for his negotiations at the EU summit [...]
Also posted in Eastern Europe Tagged education, EU, Europe, History, Kaczynski, poland, Russia, Russian Politics 6 Comments
Another common history book?
History has always been (mis-) used in political debates. Basically, every social group constructs a set of historical ‘facts’ which then are used to justify any kind of ‘political action’. The constant repetition of these ‘facts’ create history. Usually different “versions” of history exist and most of the times these versions seem incompatible even though [...]
Also posted in Eastern Europe, European Debate Tagged education, Europa, Europe, History, nationalism 1 Comment
Peter Voß fragt…Juli Zeh