Category: Activities

« Activities « TransCorr International Conferences « International Conference June 2024

International Conference

Conceptualizing Corruption: The “Old Regime” and the New Order in East-Central-South Europe (1750s-1850s)

New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study
Bucharest, 17-18 June 2024

PARTICIPANTS: Constantin ARDELEANU, Elena DENISOVA-SCHMIDT, Augusta DIMOU, Gábor EGRY, Boğaç ERGENE, Lucien FRARY, Niels GRÜNE, Eda GÜÇLÜ, Myrto LAMPROU, Silvia MARTON, Damjan MATKOVIC, Mihai OLARU, Mária PAKUCS, Konrad PETROVSZKY, Andrei-Dan SORESCU, Simeon SYMEONOV, Alex R. TIPEI, Constanța VINTILĂ

This conference is organized within the framework of ”Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850).” Funded by the European Union (ERC, TransCorr, ERC-2022-ADG no. 101098095) and hosted by the New Europe College.

Monday, June 17, 2024

10h00

Welcome remarks: Valentina SANDU-DEDIU, Rector, New Europe College

Silvia MARTON, Principal investigator, New Europe College

SESSION 1

Conceptualizing and (Re)defining ‘Corruption’

10h30-12h30

Chair and discussant: Silvia MARTON, New Europe College / University of Bucharest

Niels GRÜNE, Universität Innsbruck

Early Modern Corruption Contextualized: Changing Notions of Misconduct in Office in Central and Western Europe

Alex R. TIPEI, Université de Montréal / New Europe College

From Tyranny to Corruption: Shifting Cross-Continental Discourses in the Age of Greek Independence

Boğaç ERGENE, University of Vermont

Conceptualizing Corruption in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: A Historiographic Reflection

12h30-14h00 Lunch at the NEC

SESSION 2

(Discursive) Conflicts of ‘Corruption’

14h00-16h00

Chair and discussant: Constantin ARDELEANU, New Europe College / Institute for South-East European Studies, Bucharest

Constanța VINTILĂ, ‘Nicolae Iorga’ Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Bucharest / New Europe College

Questioning Excessive Wealth: On Abuse and Corruption in Moldavia (1800-1850)

Myrto LAMPROU, Hellenic Open University

Corruption and the Question of Non-Natives in the Greek Kingdom (1833-1862)

Augusta DIMOU, University of Leipzig / New Europe College

Legality and Legitimacy. Conceptions of Legal Order in Post-Ottoman Bosnia

16h00-16h30 Coffee break

SESSION 3

Publicity, Morality, and ‘Corruption’

16h30-17h50

Chair and discussant: Elena DENISOVA-SCHMIDT, University of St. Gallen / Center for International Higher Education at Boston College

Konrad PETROVSZKY, Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Scandalizing Corruption in the 18^th Century Ottoman Empire – the Case of the “Famous Greek Stavrakis”

Eda GÜÇLÜ, Central European University, Vienna

Corruption and the Liberal Sentiments of Morality: Taxation and Property in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

SESSION 4

Othering ‘Corruption’

10h00-12h00

Chair and discussant: Alex R. TIPEI, Université de Montréal / New Europe College

Lucien FRARY, Rider University / New Europe College

Corruption in the Ottoman Balkans: Travel Accounts during the Age of Revolutions (1770-1848)

Simeon SYMEONOV, History Institute, Sofia

Corruption at the Consulate: Entangled Microhistories of the Lower Danube

Andrei-Dan SORESCU, New Europe College

“A Romanian Siberia”: Emigration, Corruption, and Ethnicity in an Internal Periphery

12h00-13h30 Lunch at the NEC

SESSION 5

Public Offices and Changing Regulatory Practices

13h30-15h30

Chair and discussant: Gábor EGRY, Institute of Political History, Budapest

Mária PAKUCS, ‘Nicolae Iorga’ Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Bucharest / New Europe College

Policeywissenschaft in the Provinces: from Local Gute Policey to Central Policeyordnungen in Habsburg Transylvania

Mihai OLARU, ‘G. Barițiu Institute of History’, Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca

Anticorruption from Above. Malfeasance, Reformism and Common Good in Late Eighteenth Century Wallachia

Damjan MATKOVIC, University of Regensburg

Formalization, Misuse and Corruption in Serbia (1838-1858)

« Activities

TransCorr team is divided into two sub-groups according to TransCorr’s two investigative directions. The first investigative direction, “The ‘old regime’ and the new order: reform, resistance, innovation,” uses micro-historical case-studies to situate changing notions of “corruption” in the region within their broader transnational context. The second investigative direction, “Old practices, new interactions? Favoritism, interests, patronage,” focuses on specific patron-client bonds in Central-South-East Europe between 1750-1850. The sub-group’s work centers on micro-historical case-studies for analyzing the variety of forms of favoritism, patron-client ties, or informal associations that historical actors mobilized during the period.

« Activities « Strategic Meetings

Discussions focused on historical semantics, one of TransCorr’s main methodological approaches. Team members examined how the meanings and uses of specific concepts linked to “corruption” changed over time and space. They highlighted how for “corruption” to have meaning it has to be situated within a set of political and social discourses. The emphasis on the intersection of (social and political) practice and discourse constitutes one of TransCorr’s methodological novelties.

Constantin Ardeleanu presented his research with the title “ ‘Trading consuls’ and the blurring of public and private interests at the Lower Danube (1830s-1860s)”. The presentation focused on the activity of two British vice-consuls to the Lower Danube (Charles Cunningham and St. Vincent Lloyd), who served as case studies to illustrate the importance of consuls as key actors in denouncing local authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia as incompetent, abusive, and corrupt. At the same time, the two vice-consuls, who often blurred the lines between public or state and private interests, were themselves the object of various accusations, not least of all since their privileges stemmed from a special legal regime that was actively contested as backward and abusive.

Andrei Sorescu’s presentation, “The Perils (and Promise) of German Colonization: Civilizational Hierarchies and Anxieties in Nineteenth Century Romania”, focused on the constant recurrence of “colony” and “colonization” as key concepts in nineteenth century Romanian public discourse and on what this recurrence reveals about the nexus between capital, development, civilization, nation, and state. He argued that, in the formative stages of Romanian nation-state building, anxieties regarding the perceived encroachment of (Pan-)“German” expansionism were cast in explicitly “colonial” terms. As part of a self-perceivedly “backward” and underpopulated region which had historically attracted German settlement, the Danubian Principalities (and, subsequently, Romania) were increasingly feared by local political elites to be the final piece of a geopolitical puzzle, within a spatial and temporal colonial continuum of expansion. Drawing upon parliamentary debates, press, pamphlets, and economic literature, his presentation highlighted the importance of recovering historical actors’ own categories, and demonstrated the need for reflexively historicizing “colonization” and “colony”, beyond their retrospective usage as analytical categories.

« Activities « Strategic Meetings

Team members discussed the constructivist approach to ‘corruption’ in a transnational context, one of the major contributions of TransCorr to existing scholarship on Central-South-East Europe.

Principal Investigator Silvia Marton presented a paper titled, “Hopeless corruption? Negotiating modernity in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 1830s”. She highlighted the surprising centrality of the language of (anti)corruption in Russia’s interventions in the two Principalities in the context of major political and institutional changes in these territories. She also showed that, as a historically specific concept, “corruption” was closely linked to novel ideas in the region about modernization (or westernization). As such, denouncing “corrupt” acts generated a particular form of political and social capital in an emerging order in South-East and Central Europe.

Alex R. Tipei’s presentation – entitled “Civilization or Corruption: Representing Modernizing Projects of the Early Greek State in the Francophone Press” – illustrated how transnational inquiry allows historians to move beyond the confines of the nation, which have characterized much of the scholarship since the nineteenth century itself. Following the presentation, team members discussed transnational history’s focus on relationships and networks that crisscrossed nation-states, empires, and continents, exploring the interplay between historical actors and processes in disparate locales and on multiple geographic scales.

Team members also discussed the historical corpus of their research that allows them to build their micro-historical and biographical studies and to track the trajectories of individual historical actors in a transnational context.

« Activities « Strategic Meetings

Team members discussed the organization of research (TransCorr’s two investigative directions and sub-groups), identified research goals, and began planning a 2024-2028 calendar for conferences and publications. They also reviewed administrative and logistic matters related to research mobilities.

« Activities

During strategic meetings, TransCorr members discuss their conceptual and methodological approach, their empirical/archive-based research, and identify case-studies relevant to the project. These state-of-the-project gatherings ensure the coordination of workflow across the team as well as the organization of the publications and scientific events.

« Activities « TransCorr International Conferences

The New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest hosts the first major international TransCorr event from the 17^th to the 18^th of June 2024. During the conference, Conceptualizing Corruption: The “Old Regime” and the New Order in East-Central-South Europe (1750s-1850s), participants present their works that employ a (de)constructivist and/or sematic approach to study ‘corruption’ and its relationship to the rise of modernity. Focusing on Central-South-East Europe from the 1750s to the 1850s, panelists situated changing notions of ‘corruption’ in a transnational context.

• Call for Papers
• Program

« Activities « TransCorr International Conferences « International Conference June 2024

Call for Papers

International Conference
New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study
Bucharest, 17-18 June 2024

During the age of revolutions, West European politicians, scholars, and popular writers often characterized South-East-Central Europe as a corrupt political space. Notables from the region routinely echoed these claims. Those in and outside of South-East-Central Europe mobilized commentaries on “corruption” for their own political, professional, and personal gains. They used the idea of corruption to assert, for instance, that they knew to run more honest and efficient administrations, military regimes, and commercial operations. Political and economic actors on both sides of the continent linked “corruption” to the supposed cultural backwardness and economic underdevelopment of the region. In doing so, public figures naturalized notions of “corruption,” making it appear both widespread and organic, popularizing tropes that have endured right down to the present.

“Corruption,” however, is a historically specific concept not an ahistorical, moral, universal, or essentialist category. It gained currency in West Europe during the age of revolutions when a particular understanding of “corruption” grew increasingly hegemonic in developing liberal-capitalist discourses. It lent itself to liberal critiques of anciens régimes, rival politicians, and societies that they might formally or informally colonize. Public figures agitating for change used accusations of “corruption” to legitimize their political programs and assert (political and/or discursive) power.

This emerging definition of “corruption” drew on novel notions of good government that excluded traditional systems of clientelist relationships — the types of political, economic, and social networks that had heretofore characterized public life in South-East and Central Europe. Leaders in this region gradually adopted and adapted this new view of “corruption.” As such, denouncing “corrupt” acts generated a particular form of political and social capital in an emerging order in South-East and Central Europe.

The conference organizers welcome paper proposals that employ a (de)constructivist and/or sematic approach to study the concept corruption and its relationship to the rise of (West European) modernity. Submissions should focus on Central-South-East Europe from the 1750s to the 1850s. Applicants working on regional micro-histories that situate changing notions of “corruption” in a transnational context are especially encouraged to apply. To explore both the continuities perpetuated and ruptures produced by discourses of “corruption,” the conference organizers invite interested scholars to submit a proposal connected to one or more of the following themes:

(a) Redefinition of “corruption.” In West Europe, critiques of anciens régimes as “corrupt” gained purchase between 1750 and 1850. Were actors in South-East-Central Europe aware of these discourses that delegitimized the political and social status quo? If not, how do we account for the simultaneity of similar polemics in the region? What did it mean for the old regime to be “corrupt” and did leaders in East Europe understand “corruption” in the same way their West European counterparts? What did good government mean to actors in different geographic locations and how did “corruption” become a mechanism for asserting their own political legitimacy?

(b) The transitions from the old regime to the new regime. How did actors contribute to and/or resist empire- and state-building via accusations of “corruption”? Did they confront or collaborate with new imperial (and later national) agents? Did they encourage or attempt to thwart the rise of a new political/social/economic order? Who were the actors that advocated for a new order and what were the changes they pursued? How did they deploy the concept of “corruption” to achieve their goals?

(c) Reframing the Ottoman past. Throughout the period, political elites mobilized tropes like “Turk” and “Phanariot”. Even today these terms still denote notions of “corruption,” clientelism, and favoritism in the region. How can we assess their use at the time as well as the longevity of these ideas in political, public, and historiographical discourses?

(d) Codifying deviation, formalizing “corruption.” Debates over “corruption” arose in the context of a broader process of modernization marked above all by the formalization of laws (including property rights, the codification of taxes, the elaboration of various regulatory practices), the creation of an increasingly elaborate and centralized bureaucracy, and a tighter distinction between the public and private spheres. Each of these processes shaped behavioral standards. How can tracking the concept of “corruption” help us analyze these changes over time and understand their impact?

The conference organizers welcome proposals of ca. 400 words concerning the above-mentioned themes until the 1^st March 2024. The proposals, along with a short CV should be sent to [email protected] and [email protected] . The final decision on the received proposals will be announced by mid-March 2024.

Organizers and scientific selection committee

Constantin Ardeleanu (New Europe College / Institute for South-East European Studies, Bucharest)
Ana Buculei (New Europe College)
Silvia Marton (New Europe College / University of Bucharest)
Alex R. Tipei (New Europe College / Université de Montréal)

Travel costs and accommodation

Invited speakers will have their travel costs reimbursed. Accommodation will be provided.

This international conference is organized within the framework of “Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850)”, European Research Council Advanced Grant (ERC-2022-AdG no. 101098095). It is hosted by the New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest (2023-2028) (https://nec.ro/programs/erc-grants/).

Download the Call as PDF.