Events

The Vanguard of Class and Nation: Parties as Governments in Eurasia, 1920s–1990s, Heidelberg University (Online), April 12–13, 2021

Focusing on the histories of one-party (single-party) regimes in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and West Asia in the twentieth century, the workshop explored the appropriation of the government’s role by extraconstitutional organizations and their claims to alternative paths to modernization in global and comparative contexts. The workshop addressed the geneses of one-party regimes, the roles of socialism and nationalism in the parties’ approaches to modernization and state-building, the constitutions and deliberative practices, the issues of diversity (such as gender, class, ethnicity, and region), as well as crises and liberalization attempts in China, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Korea, the Soviet Union, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and other postimperial and postcolonial polities. The workshop sought to stimulate the dialogue between historians, political scientists, and other scholars working on the named contexts and to breach the divide between different area studies.

Eurasian Parliamentary Practices and Political Mythologies: Imperial Legacies, Diversities, and Representations in the 20th and 21st Century, Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH), June 17–18, 2019

The Workshop “Eurasian Parliamentary Practices and Political Mythologies” focused on the historical and “reestablished” institutions of collective decision making on the territories of the former Russian, Qing, and Ottoman Empires, as well as adjacent regions of Eastern Europe, Inner and East Asia, and explored parliamentary practices and political mythologies in these parts of Eurasia. The organizers sought to stimulate the dialogue between historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and other scholars working on the named contexts, as well as to breach the divide between different area studies. The goal of the workshop was to present well-researched historical studies of institutions of collective and deliberative decision making in indigenous, imperial, and post-imperial contexts and outline the use of the concepts, stemming from the practices of these institutions, and the appeals to historical practices in modern and contemporary political mythologies. The workshop sought to contribute to the history of concepts and the study of contemporary political mythologies and practices in both theoretical and empirical terms by bringing the material in a variety of non-European languages into the international academic discussion and tracing the exchange in practices and ideas across Eurasia.

Parliaments and Political Transformations in Europe and Asia: Diversity and Representation in the 20th and 21st Century, Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH), February 12–13, 2019

Focusing on the histories of political representation and deliberative decision-making in imperial and post-imperial contexts, the workshop explored the role of parliaments in major social and political transformations of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Juxtaposing the periods of the 1900s–1920s and the 1980s–2000s, the organizers sought to stimulate the dialogue between historians, political scientists, and other scholars working on the named contexts, as well as to breach the divide between Eastern European and East Asian Studies. The workshop traced the emergence of so-called “peripheral” parliaments in early twentieth century Eurasia, discussed the eclipse of parliamentary institutions, and examined post-socialist and post-authoritarian parliamentary designs. Special attention was devoted to the role of parliaments and parliamentary formations (such as congresses and councils) in representation and management of ethnic, religious, regional, and other social and cultural diversity, recruitment of elites, and legitimation of political and economic regimes. One of the workshop’s main goals was to challenge the persistent stereotypes about inclinations towards democracy in particular national or regional contexts by foregrounding relevant transnational practices and interactions and including nuanced political and intellectual histories of parliamentarism into the global discussion.