| title: | Good Governing. Lessons from Greek Polis and Italian Commune for the Europe of Today |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5780 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
5.7. Political Sciences |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | University of Tartu |
| head of project: | Wolfgang Drechsler |
| duration: | 01.01.2004 - 31.12.2007 |
| description: | One of the most-often used catchwords of today's state science and policy analysis discourse alike is governance, in particular 'good governance'.Next to becoming one of most used concepts by the international developing agencies, 'good governance' has strongly caught on also in Future of Europe debates. In addition, the concept of governance in general has become in recent years a cornerstone in debates around innovation, and particularly in discussions about biotechnology and the role of technology in society as such. Not only have these developments made the concept rather empty and confusing - more often than not the usage of 'good governance' in the above-mentioned debates has been misleading or outright harmful as in the case of the economies of the developing world. Clearly, there is a conceptual void which needs to be filled with well-balanced and, above all, historically, philosophically as well as policy analytically thoroughly grounded arguments. In short, a classic task for state sciences, and in particular for one of its original constituent fields, viz. political philosophy. This project proposes to do precisely that via looking back at the history and philosophical foundations of the Ancient Greek Poleis and the Italian Commune of the Renaissance. In the field of state science there is a considerable confusion with the concept of governance, which needs precisely going back to the roots of modern state and its philosophical beginnings and foundations. Such research is currently one of the 'hottest' in state sciences, as the need for such research becomes more and more clear. Yet, this research demands also extraordinarily multifaceted competencies, ranging from Ancient Greek language to modern economics. Thus, the current research team feels that it will provide a considerable addition to the emerging international debate on the issues of governance and government. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Wolfgang Drechsler | University of Tartu | professor | |
| 2. | Rainer Kattel | Tallinn Technical University | professor | |