August 20 - 26 from 2pm to 5pm
(Except for Sunday, August 23: 3pm to 6pm)

Location: Hauptschule Alpbach
Language: English

Chairpersons:

Geoffrey HOSKING, Professor emeritus of Russian History, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London
Oliver RATHKOLB, Head, Department of Contemporary History, Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna


Content:

The "cultural turn" in historiography is now a quarter of a century old, and it has generated valuable insights. But hitherto, under the influence mainly of Foucault, it has usually focussed on power relationships. There is no inherent reason why this should be so. Social bonds are not entirely constituted by power and dependence: they are supplemented by ties of attachment, reliance, affection, interdependence and even just habit, which are not wholly independent of power structures, but are not wholly generated or engulfed by them either. Perhaps we need a new approach, centring on such ties, for which the most appropriate generic term would probably be "trust". Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist expert, and a sophisticated researcher in sociological systems theory has already unearthed "trust" in the late 1970s. Since the 1990s trust becomes a parameter of international sociological research still lacking the historical dimension which will be included as an important empirical evidence in this seminar. Both the financial crisis of 1870 and the crash of 1929 provide striking material for deeper reflection concerning trust and democracy as such.
As it happens, too, we are now in the middle of a global financial predicament which many commentators call a "crisis of trust". This is, then, an especially appropriate time for historians to consider whether "trust" might not be a useful concept for understanding social structures and social processes as well as economic and political decision making.

Sessions will look as follows:

1.  The current economic crisis and its historical roots - a crisis
of trust?
2.  Distrust and the crisis of democracy (mainly since 1989).
3.  The Soviet Union and Russia.  A special case:  low trust or a
different kind of trust?
4.  Germany and Central Europe.
5.  The nation-state and the European Union as focuses of civic trust.
6.  Is the ideal of global trust utopian?

Introductionary Literature:

Niklas Luhmann: Trust and Power. Chichester, Wiley, 1979 (in German: Luhmann Niklas: Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexität. UTB Uni-Taschenbücher Bd.2185 Nachdr. d. 4. Aufl. 2009)  .

Mark E. Warren (ed.): Democracy and trust. Cambridge, UK, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Kindleberger, Charles Poor: Manias, panics and crashes: a history of financial crises. 4.ed., Basingstoke, Palgrave , 2002.

Ute Frevert (Ed.): Vertrauen: Historische Annäherungen, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2003.

Kieron O’Hara: Trust: From socrates to spin, Cambridge, Icon Books, 2004.

Geoffrey Hosking: "Trust and Distrust: A suitable theme for historians", in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol 16, 2006, 95-116.

Marek Kohn: Trust: Self-interest and the common good, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Markova, Ivana and Alex Gillespie (Ed.): Trust and distrust: Sociocultural perspectives. Charlotte, NC, Information Age Pub., 2008.