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

在过去和现在对政治形态的起源、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先驱。这些预先存在的类别和叙述，然后预设为一个解释框架，面对压倒性的复杂性的文本和考古记录，离开这些材料的潜力，一个创新的，长期的比较方法没有实现。然而，对近东社会的研究表明，通过它的持续增长和在新的文本和考古资料的生产方面取得的成就，一个巨大的内部动力。因此，这种活力要求我们重新努力建立系统的理论，我们认为，在这个时刻，我们既看到了巨大的机会，也看到了迫切需要开展一场新的运动，反对不加思考的模型和理论陈词滥调。拟议的Kollegforschungsgruppe旨在重新强调近东社会生活中的治理实施，超越对专制主义的陈腐讨论，神权政治和官僚主义走向承认“参与”和“程序”以及“偶然性”和“形式化”作为动态和过程中的关键载体-我们将从三个方面推行近东治理的新方法：（1）以公元前第二个千年的异质性为主题重点，（2）积极的方法论参与不合时宜的概念化，以及（3）一个新的理论工具的实施植根于比较工作的治理在一些不同的时间和地点。我们的重点是第二个千年公元前带来的在一个从帝国组织到准独立小国的各种不同类型的政治实体之间的大规模竞争时期之前。与此同时，这个时空体必须被视为一个独特的实验场，以理解政治结构如何以不同的方式出现，并随着时间的推移演变成其他形式。这是一个社会实践大规模异质性的时代，政治形式发生了动态变化，尤其是政治领域的反思达到了前所未有的水平。特定政治制度的形成和扩张，行政实践的正式化（例如，帝国地理规模的增长使之成为必要）与非正式实践作为一种秩序化小规模制度（例如，期望、习惯、惯例和伦理原则）的手段之间的紧张关系，只能在跨学科的比较背景下进行研究。本学术研究小组将把这样一个背景带入现实，并使之成为理解古代治理和政治形式的关键竞技场。考虑到这些因素，学术研究小组将专注于三个主要目标：1.从一个新的角度来看待

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