Der European Research Council als Ordnungsanspruch des europäischen Projekts im akademischen Feld

The European Union wants the “European Research Area” to become a process with its own competitive dynamics between national academic traditions and the global hegemony of US research. At first glance, such a Europeanization of Higher Education is vertically posited by the EU Research Framework Programmes. In addition and beyond that, the European Research Council (ERC) establishes a genuinely European academic logic fueled by strategies aimed at scientific autonomy. It does so by creating competition in accordance with meritocratic rules of academic legitimacy. As a result, both governance-oriented and critical idealist elites actively relate to the ERC as a European institution and bestow it with the ability of consecrating academic excellence. As a consequence, they contribute to the discursive construction of a European order characterized by a symbolic and material integration of elites, the opening up of national fields and the primacy of economic competition.     

Aśvaghoṣa and His Canonical Sources I: Preaching Selflessness to King Bimbisāra and the Magadhans (Buddhacarita 16.73–93)

A?vagho?a’s Buddhacarita contains two sharply argumented critiques of the non-Buddhists’ self: one against Arā?a Kālāma’s (proto-)Sā?khya version of the ātman in Canto 12, and one of a more general import in Canto 16. Close scrutiny of the latter?s narrative environment reveals A?vagho?a’s indebtedness, in both contents and wording, to either a Mahāsā?ghika(/Lokottaravādin) or—much more plausibly—a (Mūla)sarvāstivāda account of the events that saw the Buddha preach selflessness to King Bimbasāra and his Magadhan subjects. Besides hinting at this genetic relationship, the present essay aims at exhibiting the structure and contents of A?vagho?a’s arguments against the self, some of which can pride themselves of a long posterity in the controversy over the self.     

Building Capacities: The Resurgence of Indo-African Technoeconomic Cooperation

The last few years have witnessed a revival of Indo-African technoeconomic cooperation within a host of ICT-based projects aimed at promoting capacity-building. This article is an attempt at sketching out some of the most significant traits of this evolving trend based on a discussion of two landmark initiatives: the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation scheme and the Pan-African e-Network Project. The article suggests that differences between these two projects typify key changes that have taken place in conceptualizations of cooperation. First, there was an ethico-political shift in relation to the responsibility of the state and of individual beneficiaries. Then, the spatiality of cooperation has been modified in ways that are epitomized by the image of the network and its concomitant ideal of horizontal dispersion. Finally, a dynamic has emerged in which connecting the world and igniting the pride of the nation feed into one another in innovative ways.     

Russia,Europe and the Ontological Security Dilemma: Narrating the Emerging Eurasian Space

Abstract

The aim of this essay is twofold. First, it seeks to examine how Russia and the European Union understand the emerging Eurasian space. We will do this by looking at how the two narrate the space, the use of power and each other. Second, we want to argue that the narratives at the heart of the conceptual and normative maps that guide their actions and behaviour create an essentially ontological security dilemma; that is, behaviour aimed primarily at enhancing confidence in the identity and continuity of a political community threatens the ontological security of other actors.