FOR 2757:  Local Self-governance in the Context of Weak Statehood in Antiquity and the Modern Era

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Geosciences ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 391467173

The nucleus of statehood is situated at the local level: in the village, the neighborhood, the city district. This is where a community, beyond the level of the family, first develops collective rules that are intended to ensure its continued existence. But usually this is not the only level of governance at play. Above it, there are supralocal formations of power, varying in scope from regional networks to empires, which supplement the local orders or compete with them. The premise of the applicants is that local forms of self-governance are especially heterogeneous and prominent, wherever supralocal statehood exists in the mode of weak permeation. The central question of our approach is how local forms of self-governance work in this context. We will examine the relations to the state level as well as to other local groups as they develop over time; the scope and spatial contingency of forms of self-governance; their legitimization and the interdependency with the organization and collective identity of those groups which carry them out; finally, we will turn our attention to the significance of self-governance for the configuration of weak statehood. The empirical focus will be at the local level, which has so far been largely neglected in the research on governance beyond the state. In order to achieve this, we will work with case studies that are structured by categories and situated in geographical areas and time periods that lie outside of modern Europe with its particular development of statehood since the Late Middle Ages: in Antiquity and in the Global South of the present. By incorporating these different time frames, we hope to contribute to overcoming the dichotomy between the modern and pre-modern era, which is often given canonical status. Our goal is a comparative analysis of different configurations of order as well as the development of a typology of patterns of local governance. The structure of the empirical comparison itself promises methodological insights, since it will entail recognizing, dealing with, and overcoming disciplinary limitations. Starting with the identification of typical patterns and processes, we hope to get a better grasp of the mechanisms by which local configurations of order succeed, while at the same time advancing the theoretical debate. This will allow us to make an interdisciplinary contribution to the understanding of fundamental elements of statehood and local governance that are of central importance, especially in the context of weak statehood. The insights we hope to gain by adopting this historical perspective will contribute to understanding a present that is not based exclusively on its own, apparently completely new preconditions, and will thus significantly sharpen the political analysis of various forms of governance.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Canada, Switzerland

Projects

• Boğazköy: Local Self-Governance in Central Anatolia from the Iron Age to the end of the Roman era (ca. 1100 BC to 400 AD) (Applicant Schachner, Andreas )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Pfeilschifter, Rene )
• Local Self-Governance for the Provision of Security: Vigilantes in Burkina Faso (Applicant Werthmann, Katja )
• Local Self-governance in Judea in the second century BCE: Historical and Literary Perspectives (Applicant Schmitz, Barbara )
• Local Self-Organizing, Urban Civil Society and Church Norms: Alexandreia and Antiocheia in the Roman Empire (Applicant Pfeilschifter, Rene )
• Renewable Energy and Local Governance in China (Applicant Fischer, Doris )
• The Organisation of University Education and Credit Lending in immigrant Communities of South Brazil (Applicant Lauth, Hans-Joachim )
• Urban Shadow Spaces in the Postcolonial State: Self-organisation of Land and Water Resources in the Periphery of Maputo (Mozambique) (Applicant Rothfuß, Eberhard )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Rene Pfeilschifter