Prestige und gemeiner Nutzen Universitätsgründungen im deutschen Spätmittelalter

The medieval German university entered the picture late but thereby as a new and third type of university in Europe besides Paris and Bologna: This was the ruler-controlled ‘Four-Faculties-University’, which powerfully integrated the socially very different associations of liberal arts, theology, medicine, and law. From the beginning on the ‘German type’ was tied to the princely founder, his court, his dynasty, and his territory (in some cases also to the municipal leadership), and it was politically subjected to his will. All foundations produced prestige and dynastic need at first rather than public need (utilitas publica), respectively the advancing of common learned education and science. The great royal dynasties of Luxembourg, Habsburg, and Wittelsbach began founding in Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg. Up to 1506 all the seven prince electors, some more important princes and big towns of the Holy Roman Empire had their university or had relations to a university. Public need was rather an indirect result: university students utilized surprisingly strongly the possibilities offered by the subsequent university foundations in Germany - about 200.000 people during a long-term 15^th century. However, it has to be thought over in the history of science and effectivity of the German universities in a European frame, that more than 80% of them were ‘only’ students of arts.     

Second‐Order Condensations of Societal Power Relations: Environmental Politics and the Internationalization of the State from a Neo‐Poulantzian Perspective1

Abstract: This article develops an understanding of the internationalization of the state which draws on materialist state theory, regulation theory and the scale debate in radical geography. It introduces the concept of “second‐order condensations of societal relationships of forces” which aims at advancing Poulantzas’ state theoretical approach and applying it to the analysis of international state apparatuses, their functions and their relationship to state apparatuses on other spatial scales. The empirical and political relevance of the theoretical considerations is elucidated with examples from international resource and environmental policy.     

Ancient DNA insights from the Middle Neolithic in Germany

Genetic studies of Neolithic groups in central Europe have provided insights into the demographic processes that have occurred during the initial transition to agriculture as well as in later Neolithic contexts. While distinct genetic patterns between indigenous hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers in Europe have been observed, it is still under discussion how the genetic diversity changed during the 5,000-year span of the Neolithic period. In order to investigate genetic patterns after the earliest farming communities, we carried out an ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of 34 individuals from Wittmar, Germany representing three different Neolithic farming groups (ca. 5,200–4,300 cal bc) including Rössen societies. Ancient DNA analysis was successful for six individuals associated with the Middle Neolithic Rössen and observed haplotypes were assigned to mtDNA haplogroups H5, HV0, U5, and K. Our results offer perspectives on the genetic composition of individuals associated with the Rössen culture at Wittmar and permit insights into genetic landscapes in central Europe at a time when regional groups first emerged during the Middle Neolithic.     

Challenges to Neoliberal Hegemony in Bolivia

Since 1985, Bolivia has undergone three phases of the imposition of and popular resistance to neoliberal policies. This article charts the uneven course of neoliberal hegemony beginning with the structural adjustment program in the mid‐1980s through popular uprisings between 2000 and 2003 that ousted the national government. Even though the current administration may be unable to resist World Bank and IMF pressure to continue neoliberal policies, powerful and diverse popular movements will certainly continue to contest them. This article makes two contributions to discussions of neoliberalism as a hegemonic system: it identifies problems of scale in maintaining neoliberalism, and it reminds us of the importance of coercion in maintaining hegemony.