Bøger udgivet af European Interuniversity Press

The fundamental contrast between convergent and divergent tendencies in the development of Balkan cultural identity can be seen as an important determinative both in the contradictory self-images of people in the Balkans and in the often biased perceptions of Balkan societies held by external observers, past and present. In bringing together case studies from such heterogeneous lines of research as linguistics, anthropology, political, literary and cultural history, each presenting insightful analyses of micro- as well as macro-level aspects of identity construction in the Balkans, this collection of essays provides a forum for the elucidation and critical evaluation of an intriguing paradox which continues to characterize the cultural situation in the Balkans and which, moreover, is of undeniable relevance for our understanding of recent political developments. As such, it also provides a window into the actual state of scholarly interest in the rich interdisciplinary field of Balkan studies. This book contains a selection of papers presented at the international conference «Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence vs. Divergence», organized by the Center for Southeast European Studies at Ghent University on 12 and 13 December 2003 in Ghent.

In recent years, new and more intrusive surveillance technology has found its way into workplaces. New medical tests provide detailed information about workers¿ biology that was previously unthinkable. An increasing number of employees work under camera surveillance. At the same time, computers allow for a detailed monitoring of our interactions with machines, and all this information can be electronically stored in an easily accessible format. What is happening in our workplaces? Has the trend towards more humane workplaces been broken? From an ethical point of view, which types and degrees of surveillance are acceptable, and which are not? From a policy point of view, what methods can be used to regulate the use of surveillance technology in workplaces? These are some of the questions that have driven the research reported in this book. Written by an interdisciplinary group of researchers in Computer Ethics, Medical Ethics and Moral Philosophy, this book provides a broad overview that covers both empirical and normative aspects of workplace privacy.

Today¿s world is a world of nation-states; few have survived since the early modern period, some have existed for three hundred years, most came into being during the second part of the last century. Yet the equation between the state and the nation does not go back far in history, despite the prevailing tendency to view the state as closely linked to ethnicity. To challenge the latter this book attempts to examine statehood separately from the concept of ethnicity; it asks what is non-ethnic about statehood by looking at ¿statehood before and beyond ethnicity¿. A non-ethnic statehood is analysed in two forms: as a historical phenomenon at the time of the emergence of the early modern state (Part One) and as a historical tradition which had been pursued by the nation-builders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Part Two). Instead of looking at great powers as traditional models of statehood, individual chapters focus on minor and less familiar states in Northern and Eastern Europe from the period c. 1600-2000, including Belgium, Bohemia, Greece, the Netherlands, Romania, Poland-Lithuania, Serbia and Montenegro, Sweden, Scotland and Transylvania.

In this volume, the author presents a version of Africäs longest oral recitation of myth of origination, the black bagr myth found among the Dagara of Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso, and discusses in detail its historical and literary significance for the society. Hence, the author first outlines the historical conditions possibly responsible for the coming into existence of both the mythical narratives and the rites of initiation that accompany the narration; and then presents the literary frame and structure in which the black bagr narrative is composed. The rest of the book is a unique bilingual (Dagara and English) presentation of the black bagr narration recorded and viewed live from within a secret rite of initiation. The narration itself, similar to all black bagr ritual narrative sessions, lasted up to three hours and was performed without interruption by one speaker. The narrative content shows to what extent the rites achieve the double purpose of teaching the initiates culture knowledge and giving them new individual identities that will equip them for different social positions in life.

The enactment of humanity begins with experiences and culminates in the effects of coping with experiences. Experience confirms the human potential, but indicates also its limitations, both in the sense that the absence of experiences undermines established modes of behavior, and that disregard and misunderstanding of experiences lead to distorted forms of personal and cultural relations. This book is an attempt to localize religion, as well as the study of religions, within the context of experiences and as a topic of philosophical inquiry. Focusing on the question of specifically religious experiences and investigating various models of the relationship between religion and experience, the study suggests that no specific experiences are needed to understand the emergence and development of religious traditions and attitudes. Assessing the implications of basic questions and attitudes in religious studies, it presents a theory of religion which is rooted in the internal dynamics of being human and cultural, and marked by a culture-oriented understanding of philosophy. The book concludes with a discussion of various phenomena which can be addressed as modes and forms of implicit religion, since they do not comply with expectations of traditional or explicit religion.

Why are some regional development strategies adopted and others rejected? Only limited systematic attention has been paid to the politics of regional policy, including the role of institutions, discourse, and political debate in shaping this major area of public policy. The book develops an institutionalist approach to the study of regional policy, capable of spanning major European development paradigms and accounting for the dynamic relationship between organisations, policies and political discourse. This conceptual framework is then applied to the Scottish Development Agency, a development body famed across Europe for its innovative policies but surrounded by political controversy in Scotland. A detailed study of corporate strategies, policy implementation, and the wider British environment questions existing interpretations of the organisation which tend to vilify anti-interventionist Thatcherites or glorify shrewd development professionals. Instead the author proposes an alternative synthesis which highlights the interplay between institutions, discourse and regional development in the politics of regional policy.

This book approaches literary existentialism (1935-1960) from a philosophical point of view and provides a semantic frame through which the primary works of this movement can be interpreted. Readings of Sartre, Sábato, Camus, Böll, De Beauvoir, Nooteboom, and others emphasize the place and themes specific to each writer within literary existentialism as a whole. One of the most original features of this study is its focus on the central notion of ¿engagement¿ after 1960. Having highlighted its waning in postmodernism, van Stralen then demonstrates the vigorous resurgence of this pivotal concept in postcolonial discourses.

Japan and the European Union are two «civilian powers» that have dramatically extended and diversified their role on the world stage and that have launched together an Action Plan dealing with peace and stability, economic, environmental, commercial and financial governance, and cultural exchanges and cooperation. Their bilateral cooperation has been intensified as well as their cross contribution to the G8 and multilateral organisations like the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. In parallel, their respective domestic and international positions have changed. The EU has integrated ten new members, adopted a Constitution and developed a security and defence policy. Japan has widened its international and security role and reorganised most of its economic policies. Therefore, Japan and the enlarged European Union are actors and partners in the process of global governance. This book addresses the cooperation between Japan and the enlarged European Union for a more secure world, sustainable development and global governance. It gathers contributions from European and Japanese experts who have established a permanent network on this topic and meet every year for seminars in Brussels under the aegis of the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) and its Belgian member organisation Study Group on European Policies (SEP-GEPE), with the support of the Japan Foundation. The book is a joint Japanese-European contribution to the Year of Japan-European Union People-to-People Exchanges declared in 2005.

Le terrorisme n¿est pas neuf. Malgré la mobilisation internationale à la suite des attentats du 11 septembre 2001, de récentes violences terroristes ont montré l¿urgence d¿une analyse approfondie de ce phénomène. Les contributions multidisciplinaires de cet ouvrage permettent de mieux en cerner les caractéristiques. La notion de risque, le rôle des médias, les liens avec le trafic de drogue, la coopération internationale et la préservation des libertés publiques sont examinés pour donner un éclairage saisissant de l¿activité terroriste. Terrorism is certainly not a new phenomenon. In spite of an international mobilisation following the attacks of 11 September, 2001, recent targets of violent attacks have added urgency to the critical examination of this subject. In this book, multidisciplinary analyses make an important contribution to our understanding of the principal characteristics of terrorism. The notion of risk, the role of the media, the connections between terrorism and the drugs trade, the importance of international cooperation and the preservation of civil liberties are closely examined. The result is a book that provides a unique insight into the phenomenon of terrorism.

Throughout the industrialised world trade unionists are reforming their organisations as part of a strategy to adjust to new labour market, economic and political circumstances. This volume examines the role of merger activity in this process of reform. The book identifies the pattern of merger activity, the factors that promote its development and its impact on union structure and governance. Most merger activity is shown to originate in some adverse environmental change, such as membership decline. Furthermore, there is little evidence to suggest that mergers have improved union performance in the recruitment, retention and organisation of members, although, in some cases, the reform of systems of membership participation has been facilitated. The shift away from industrial unions has been accelerated by merger involvement, which has also brought into question the role of confederations where the number of affiliated unions has declined markedly. The book comprises two sections. The first section examines the merger process in ten countries (Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, UK and US). The second section comprises three ¿horizontal¿ chapters in which authors of the national chapters develop themes that emerge from the national chapters in comparative perspective.

The color of the book¿s cover alludes to the time and context in which this important volume originated: the 3 Interdisciplinary Conference Celebrating International Women¿s Day at the New School for Social Research in New York City. At that time ¿orange alerts¿ were issued by the United States to create a climate of fear and thereby stifle any critical debate of its foreign and domestic policy. The feminist thinkers presented in this volume are alert that such a critique is needed. They draw on the various languages of their fields to address wide-ranging topics and key questions in feminist politics, theory and philosophy. They all confront the state of urgency concerning the role of women in all classes of society, in all fields of research and the academy. This unique collection ranges across disciplines; as such the four major topics ¿ aesthetics and female representation, love and psychoanalysis, care and ethics, the different understandings of ¿women¿ ¿ represent current topics of cross-disciplinary interest for Women¿s and Gender Studies, Philosophy, and Political Science.

The book analyses the transnational Alpine region where historical, social, and geo-economic specificities have led to a distinctive type of democracy and identity. Differentialist identities, multi-level consociational accommodation, and corporatist intermediation are typical features of this region¿s «consensual politics», and the process of European integration adds further to this complexity. These forms of consensual politics are challenged today by large and persistent populist parties that express strong anti-elitist sentiments, local identities, and Euro-sceptic attitudes. The book examines the defensive reaction of populist parties to the perceived threats of open borders (multi-culturalism and cheap labour) and elite negotiations (at all levels of governance). Protest attitudes translate into alternative views of European integration favouring proposals for an anti-assimilationist and labour protective «Fortress», as well as a religiously-based «Europe of the People». The book considers the possibility of a potential cleavage in the incipient European party system through alliances of «losers of integration» cutting across the left-right alignment and overlapping with ethno-linguistic, centre-periphery, religious, and rural-urban factors that survived in the Alpine region more than elsewhere. An empirical analysis by a group of international experts focuses on the Alpine areas of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland in which parties like FPÖ, CSU, Lega Nord, and Schweizerische Volkspartei have recently become crucial actors.

Policymakers saw European Community membership as a way for Spain to secure democracy and promote economic development throughout the country. Nevertheless, regional economic disparities still persist in Spain almost twenty years after it entered the Community, despite significant European allocation of funds to remedy underdevelopment. How did the policies of the European Union impact Spain? What lessons can new EU members learn from Spain¿s experience within the European Union? Using rich empirical evidence and an innovative comparative analysis, this book examines the regional experiences of Galicia and the Valencian Community in Spain. The political dynamics and persistence of clientelism, which affect policymaking and policy implementation within each region, are particularly considered. These cases provide new insight to explain why regional economic differences persist in Spain despite efforts to alleviate them. Historically grounded and detailed, this study analyzes the process of accession and the ignored long-term ramifications of accession negotiations and treaties, it focuses on the often-overlooked contradiction between European regulations and regional development policies, and questions whether EU membership has been as beneficial as policymakers thought it would be.

This volume is a collection of contributions about the history and practice of travel and travel writing from a variety of academic disciplines including anthropology, history, linguistics and literary criticism. It brings together scholars from over ten different countries and reflects on what travel is and how travel writings function. It traces the history of travel and travel writing and the notion or idea of a European civilisation that permeates performances and perceptions. The notion of Europe appears as a set of quality standards as well as guidelines for experiences against which civilisations are measured. This set of standards and guidelines, however, is far from stable. It is a floating foundation carrying different versions of Europe throughout time. The authors tackle the problem from different angles: travels from Europe across the seven oceans transported the idea of European civilisation just as travels to Europe or within Europe. The volume explores the different meanings attached to the term ¿Europe¿ and ¿civilisation¿ throughout history and shows how different political or cultural contexts affect the notion of what Europe is or should be.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States provoked a significant shift in thinking about peace and security, and much has since been written about new security threats and challenges. This collection of essays revisits some of the more traditional concepts of peace and security that remain valid and pertinent today, despite having ceded much of the limelight to the major security preoccupations of the current era: international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, rogue states and related phenomena. The book covers numerous salient topics, from arms production, monitoring and control, to disarmament and conversion through to peacekeeping and conflict prevention. The contributions differ in scope, form and analysis ranging from historical and philosophical to contemporary and political perspectives and approaches to peace and security.

The theory of comparative federalism asserts that federations require a second chamber for the representation of regional interests in central law-making. Yet there has been little systematic analysis of the contribution of second chambers in parliamentary federations to this task. The main purpose of this book is to demonstrate to what extent the two strongest parliamentary second chambers, the Australian Senate and the German Bundesrat are linked to the federal structures in which they are embedded. The study analyzes the contribution of the members of these second chambers in advancing interests that are linked to the regional constituents whom they represent or to the collective fiscal or administrative interests of a regional government with whom they are associated. The analysis underscores the largely ¿executive¿ character of intergovernmental relations in parliamentary federations, a feature that corresponds with the composition of the German Bundesrat, but not of the Australian Senate. In the concluding chapter some preliminary observations are made as to whether our findings also generate interesting insights for the larger group of parliamentary second chambers in federal or quasi-federal states, such as the Belgian, Spanish and Canadian Senates, the UK House of Lords and the Indian Raiya Sabha.

Ce volume réunit les contributions d¿historiens et de théoriciens spécialisés dans l¿étude du son au sens large, présentées lors du colloque international ARCHIMEDIA organisé à Bruxelles en octobre 2000. Les textes rassemblés proposent des approches innovantes sur l¿historiographie sonore, l¿écoute musicale, les systèmes de synchronisation des films muets, les conditions d¿élaboration de partitions d¿accompagnement sonore, les productions nationales du début du parlant, les pratiques musicales hollywoodiennes inédites, ainsi que le son dans la sphère domestique à la télévision et sur Internet. Les contributions à caractère technique prolongent la réflexion théorique sur la restauration et la conservation du matériau sonore. This volume gathers contributions from reputed historians and theorists in the broad area of sound studies, presented at the international ARCHIMEDIA conference held in Brussels in October 2000. The texts constitute innovative approaches in the fields of sound historiography, musical audition, synchronization mechanisms for silent films, accompaniment practices, early sound national productions, unusual Hollywood musical composition practices, as well as sound outside film theatres (home cinema, television and resources on the Internet). Technical contributions pursue the theoretical inquiries by means of examples of restoration and conservation of sound material.

Central and eastern European countries are undergoing internal transformations, to liberal democracy and the market economy. At the same time, they must meet the criteria for European integration. This book examines the territorial dimension of these challenges. Central and eastern Europe has its own distinct histories of territorial politics and state structures, which continue to influence the present. Like their western neighbours the countries of the region must confront a world in which politics and policy making are changing in scale, with the emergence of new local and intermediate levels. The market economy and free trade can lead to increasing economic disparities. National and ethnic minorities create a demand for local and regional devolution. The European Commission and other external agents have posed requirements for new administrative structures to manage European funding. All this creates a complex set of pressures to which the transition countries must respond. This book, by an international group of scholars, examines these challenges from a diversity of angles, historical, economic, political and institutional.

La rupture observée au début des années 90 dans la courbe du soutien public à l'intégration européenne a posé avec acuité le problème de la place de l'opinion publique dans l'ensemble du processus d'intégration. L'émergence de ce débat européen ne saurait occulter le fait qu'il se décline en fonction des situations nationales. Le choix a donc été fait de proposer dans cet ouvrage un article par pays, en retenant une sélection représentative de chaque étape: l'Allemagne, la Belgique, la France et l'Italie parmi les six fondateurs; le Danemark et la Grande-Bretagne pour le premier élargissement, outre la Norvège; le Portugal pour celui de 1986; l'Autriche pour 1995; enfin deux pays adhérents, la Hongrie et la République tchèque. Cette démarche offre l'avantage d'apporter un éclairage inédit sur certaines opinions publiques négligées en tant que telles par les publications et de permettre de fructueuses comparaisons. L'objectif est aussi de conjuguer dans une approche pluridisciplinaire un regard historique et des clés d'explication politologiques. The importance of public opinion in the process of European integration was brought into sharp focus at the start of the 1990s. Discussion about the future of Europe comes in a variety of forms, however, depending on the circumstances of the country concerned. This book brings together important and insightful articles about public opinion in countries at the centre of this European debate. These concern Germany, Belgium, France and Italy, from the founding members; the UK and Denmark from the first enlargement, with Norway; Portugal, from the 1986 enlargement and Austria, from the 1995 one; Hungary and the Czech Republic, two candidate-countries due to accede to the EU in 2004. This volume re-evaluates the importance of particular strands of public opinion which are often overlooked in the academic literature. Seen in this fresh light, interesting comparisons and contrasts emerge. The aim of this book is also to bring together both history and political theory.

The future of Southeastern Europe and connected EU policies are a much more important issue than just guaranteeing regional stability and sustainable modernization in the «backyard of Europe». The credibility of the EU, as a global «soft power» is at stake, with far reaching consequences on the future of the European integration, affecting both further enlargement and urgently needed deepening. The strategy oriented analysis commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Budapest is based on an interdisciplinary approach with clear emphasis on economic issues, such as global, EU-related and intra-regional trade, foreign direct investments, labour market, migration and financial transfers. Domestic developments and EU relations of the individual Southeastern European countries are compared to each other and to the experience of other transforming countries of Central and Eastern Europe, already full members of the European Union. Special attention is paid to conditionality requirements, recent changes and ongoing dilemmas of the EU¿s strategy towards the Western Balkans in a critical period of the region, both regarding their different speed and quality of preparing for full-fledged membership and the potential consequences of the future status of Kosovo.

Shame and Desire defines the contemporary cinematic experience in terms that go beyond the visual. Adopting an intersubjective perspective on film studies, the author maintains that the dialectical poles of subject and object, seeing and being seen no longer seem to be valid. We are now surrounded by images that look back at us provocatively, seductively, indifferently; and not only in movies, but also in art, television, the city, in chance encounters, and in our private relationships. Taking her cue from Jean-Paul Sartre, the author shows how emotions exemplify the way in which we are ¿forced¿ to see ourselves through the eyes of others, unable to escape an identity that is imposed upon us from the outside but nevertheless resides ¿in the flesh¿ ¿ in the affective operations of the body and the senses. To illustrate her account of the intersubjective dynamics and affective bonds of cinema, the author explores the contemporary aesthetic investment in the emotional in the work of filmmakers such as Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. This book proposes an insight into the ways in which we are engaged with visual displays and the look with which they respond to our looking.

This book enlarges the perspective of literary geography which tends to focus on the correspondence between the objective world the geographer addresses and its subjective rendering in art. Instead it considers how geography informs fresh aesthetic responses to space in contemporary Canadian literature, with specific attention to the writings of Alistair MacLeod, Jane Urquhart, Anne Michaels, Aritha van Herk, Rudy Wiebe, Robert Kroetsch and Thomas Wharton. This broadening leads to a series of interrogations: what blanks in conventional landscape writing does physical geography fill, and how? Where does the efficiency of geography lie beyond its scientific accuracy or descriptive relevance? Pondering the role of geography in a work of art therefore amounts to considering what makes geography work as art ¿ is there such a thing as a poetics of geography? Because the place of the writer and the representation of space remain two central concerns in Canadian writing, the texts under scrutiny help elucidate the critical role performed by the «geographical imagination,» a phrase used by theoreticians as diverse as Edward Said, Edward Soja or Derek Gregory, in the fabrication of symbolic ties between Canadians and the land they have come to share.