Kollektivität/Individualität - DFG Graduate School 1412

Transfer and Adaption of institutions             

The social and political research of South-Eastern-Europe has been dealing with the question of transfer and adaption of institutions for quite some time. Within the bounds of the Graduate school the shaping of cultural role models by political, religious and social institutions shall be analysed, which in various forms became a central project of South-Eastern-European elites since the 19th century. The transfer of political and social institutions requires an enormous adaptability when considering the inherited social fragments of the Ottoman Empire, the persistence of economical differences in the countries. developments as well as handed down and newly acquired social behaviours and religious mentalities.

At this point the question, which can only be answered on an interdisciplinary level, arises as to what extent the consultative capacity of the European Commission carries a Western-European way of thinking into the acceding countries and hence evokes counterreactions.

The dissertations in this area of research are meant to scrutinize the prerequisites, main ideas and the handling agents of the transfer of institutions. This analysis includes the numerous forms and possibilities of social, religious and cultural roots and the resulting adaption processes. The crucially necessary cultural dimension adds to the question of adaption and realization of the Acquis communautaire. Conditions and boundaries of long term successful institutional modernisation of the South-Eastern-European countries are explored at the same time.