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• 30 sep 2019

  Paris

  Call for papers - Political studies

  Seeing Politics through Intermediation and Intermediaries

  This seminar proposes to look at politics through the lens of political intermediaries and what they do, i.e. intermediation. Intermediaries can be defined as an assorted group of actors (political brokers, political parties, interest groups, movements) who acts as a hinge between two or more levels, actors or social institutions; while intermediation , as a process, encompasses all the mediations that these actors perform in order to keep the political system intact (Zaremberg, Guarneros-Meza, and Lavalle 2017; Gunther, Puhle, and Montero 2007; Kitschelt 2004; Smith 2007). The question we are interested in relates to the transformations in the roles of these agents and processes of mediation since the neo-liberal transformation has engulfed the processes of public policy formulation, contestation and enactment.

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• 31 jan 2019

  01 fév 2019

  Zurich

  Conference, symposium - Political studies

  The Pillars of Rule

  The Writ of Dynasties and Nation-States in the Middle East and South Asia

  Max Weber famously argued that states lay claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence over certain circumscribed territories. However, historical and anthropological research has challenged his ideal-typical vision by showing how the idea of the unitary state is a fiction that can only be produced through the action of interrelated but partly autonomous agents. States, and the various institutions that constitute them, face the strategic task of identifying and domesticating the social networks that are necessary for them to secure control over particular territories and their populations. Local strongmen and notables can in turn use their own local influence in order to gain recognition from higher-level, more powerful, state institutions. In this international conference, scholars from a variety of disciplines will explore the ways in which dynastic power and/or the rule of the state is asserted, negotiated and contested across both the Middle East and South Asia.

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• 25 jan 2019

  Zurich

  Scholarship, prize and job offer - Ethnology, anthropology

  Vacancy PhD position in Social Anthropology at the University of Zürich

  We are looking for a doctoral student to be part of the research project “Visions of the Social: The Transformation of State Planning in Postcolonial India” which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.  The PhD student will examine local implications of financialized forms of social service provision in North India.  We offer employment for four years with a competitive salary as well as a dynamic and innovative research setting in a lively department with a motivated faculty interested in collaboration and academic exchange.

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