Rethinking Oriental Despotism - Strategies of Governance and Modes of Participation in the Ancient Near East

反思东方专制主义——古代近东的治理策略和参与模式

• 批准号: 372743362
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Altorientalistik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Advanced Studies Centres in SSH
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/372743362?language=en
• 关键词: Rethinking; Oriental; Despotism; Strategies; Governance

In both past and present-day research on the origin, struture and effectiveness of political configurations, Near Eastern forms of rule are usually presented as the prime examples of precursors to autocratic rule. These pre-existing categories and narratives are then presupposed as an interpretive framework in the face of the overwhelming complexity of the textual and archaeological record, leaving the potential of these materials for an innovative, longue durée comparative approach unfulfilled. Research on Near Eastern societies shows, however, through its continual growth and achievements in the production of new textual and archaeological sources, a huge internal dynamism. And, consequently, this dynamism calls for a renewed effort of systematic theory-building.We see in this moment both a huge opportunity and a pressing need for a new campaign against unreflective models and theoretical cliché. The proposed Kollegforschungsgruppe aims at a new accentuation on the implementation of governance in Near Eastern social life, moving beyond hackneyed discussions of despotism, theocracy and bureaucracy toward the recognition of ‘participation’ and ‘procedure’ as well as ‘contingency’ and ‘formalization’ as the key vectors within a dynamic and process-oriented model of ‘governance’.We will pursue this new approach to Near Eastern governance in three ways: (1) a thematic focus on the heterogeneity of the second millennium BCE, (2) an aggressive methodological engagement with anachronistic conceptualizations, and (3) the implementation of a new theoretical instrumentarium rooted in comparative work on governance in a number of different times and place.Our focus on the second millennium BCE brings to the fore a time of massive competition between widely divergent types of political entities, ranging from imperial formations to quasi-independent petty states. This chronotope must be seen, at the same time, as a unique experimental field for understanding the different ways in which political structures emerge and morph into other forms through time. It was an age of massive heterogeneity in social practice, dynamic changes in political form and, not least, an unprecedented level of reflexivity in the political field. The formation and expansion of specific political regimes, the tension between the formalization of adminstrative practice (as made necessary, for example, by the growth in geographical scale of imperial states) and the power of informal practices as a means of ordering small-scale institutions (for instance, expectations, habits, conventions, and ethical principles) can only be investigated in an interdisciplinary, comparative context. This Kollegforschungsgruppe will bring such a context into being and make it into a key arena for understanding governance and political form in antiquity.Bearing these considerations in mind, the Kollegforschungsgruppe will focus on three primary goals: 1. a new perspective on the interdependence between

在过去和现在对政治结构的起源、结构和有效性的研究中，近东的统治形式通常被认为是专制统治的前身。面对文字和考古记录的压倒性复杂性，这些预先存在的类别和叙述被预先假定为一个解释框架，使得这些材料作为一种创新的、长期的比较方法的潜力没有得到实现。然而，对近东社会的研究表明，通过其不断增长和在产生新的考古资料和考古资料方面取得的成就，存在着巨大的内在动力。因此，这种活力需要重新努力建立系统的理论。我们在这个时刻看到了一个巨大的机会，也迫切需要一场新的运动，反对缺乏反思的模型和理论陈词滥调。拟议的KollegforschungsGruppe旨在对近东社会生活中治理的实施进行新的强调，超越关于专制、神权和官僚制度的陈词滥调，转而承认“参与”和“程序”以及“偶然性”和“形式化”是动态和面向过程的“治理”模式中的关键载体。我们将从三个方面探讨这种新的近东治理方法：(1)主题关注第二个公元前千年的异质性，(2)积极的方法论接触不合时宜的概念化，以及(3)实施一种新的理论工具，根植于许多不同时代和地点的治理比较工作。我们对公元前第二个千年的关注，使从帝国形成到准独立的小国等广泛不同类型的政治实体之间的大规模竞争时代脱颖而出。与此同时，这个计时器必须被视为一个独特的试验田，用来理解政治结构如何随着时间的推移以不同的方式出现并演变为其他形式。这是一个社会实践异质化程度极高、政治形式发生动态变化、政治领域的反身性达到前所未有的水平的时代。具体政治制度的形成和扩大，行政管理做法的正规化(例如，由于帝国地理规模的扩大而变得必要)与非正式做法作为命令小规模机构的手段(例如，期望、习惯、惯例和伦理原则)之间的紧张关系，只能在跨学科的比较背景下进行调查。考虑到这些考虑，KollegforschungsGruppe将专注于三个主要目标：1.以新的视角看待两国之间的相互依存关系