Search by section

“SPANISH CASTLES” IN THE AEGEAN: Greek Political Imagination in the Russian Archipelagic Principality, 1770-1774

06.04.2018
On December 20, 1768, as Russian plans to launch a naval expedition into the eastern Mediterranean began to materialize, Catherine II wrote to her envoy in London, describing how her tendency to build “Spanish castles” had been awakened. While, in some ways, idealistic, Catherine’s Greek project produced several tangible successes in the early 1770s. Following the victory at Chesma, in the summer of 1770, the Russian navy established firm control over the Aegean Sea for the remainder of the war.

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING: competing political, good governance and technocratic logics

01.03.2018
Yves Cabannes: University College London, Development Planning Unit, Emeritus. Participatory budgeting (PB) has been a major innovation in participatory governance worldwide, with more than 3,000 experiences listed across 40 countries. PB has also diversified over its 30 years, with many contemporary experiments (referred to as PBs) only tangentially related to the original project to “radically democratize democracy”.

THE SYNDROME OF THE THERMOMETER

05.05.2017
Could a machine read my mind? Could it read my mind better I can? Could it find out what I really think, what I truly feel, and may not be aware of? It does not matter whether the machine scans my brain or analyses of my data, whether it is neuroscience or, as we say, Big Data. The point is: can a machine be an instrument of introspection?

Presentation by Ayvar Stepanov "The Great Bridge in Novgorod (Results of the 2013 Excavation)"

14.04.2014
The Great Bridge in Novgorod, a structure connecting the Sofia and Marketplace sides of medieval Novgorod, was a key object in the city life. According to the "Charter on Bridges," an integral part of Russian law, its upkeep and maintenance were shared among all city dwellers. But the bridge was not simply a transportation artery linking the two areas that stretched along both banks of the Volkhov. It was an important public space in Novgorod. Here, residents of the Sofia and Marketplace sides would meet, though such meetings did not always proceed peacefully.
photos

International workshop "Classic Republicanism as a Freedom Affirming Alternative to Liberalism"

19.02.2014
Quentin Skinner is a Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. He is usually taken to be the head of one of two schools of conceptual historians (Anglo-American, or Cambridge school, another one being the Begriffsgeschichte approach associated with Reinhart Koselleck). Prof Skinner has published a lot on early modern European thought, starting with by new classic Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vols.
photos