Objective The project aims to study the historical specificity of republican governance in Western and Eastern Europe and draw implications for current reforms of municipal self-government in Eastern Europe. The project will compare the republican past of medieval city-states like Venice and Novgorod (that existed in Northwestern Russia in XII-XV centuries), but will also draw parallels with medieval city-states in Armenia. Nevertheless, this historical research will be subservient to a main goal a discussion of contemporary reform of municipal utilities in Russia and NIS in general, drawing lessons from the past to outline unorthodox policy proposals. The project entails a linkage of archeological, historical and political sciences studies. The archeological part will concentrate on examining the remains of the only multi-season bridge of the republic of Novgorod that had brought the city together politically, culturally and financially (since it had been funded by all citizens, and held a central religious and political role). The historical part will be based on these findings and will draw comparisons between republican experiences of Italian medieval republics and Novgorod, Such a study is long awaited by the general public. Another historical study will be an examination of urban politics around bridges, in republics and autocracies, using data from Novgorod, Italian and Armenian history. The political science part of the project will consist in using the findings of historians to recast the terms of debate around current self-government reform in the NIS. This political science part of the project will entail both a theory study and an examination of public policy implications. In overall, the project will produce two books summing up and analyzing the findings, and a series of sets of archeological, geological and dendrochronological data. Programme(s) IC-INTAS - International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the independent states of the former Soviet Union (INTAS), 1993- Topic(s) Transforming Societies 2004 - Thematic Call - Transforming Societies - East and West Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme Data not available Coordinator Institute d'etudes politiques de Paris - Sciences Po EU contribution No data Address rue St Guillaume 27 75337 Paris France See on map Total cost No data Participants (4) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all European University at St. Petersburg Russia EU contribution No data Address Gagarinskaia street 3 191187 St. Petersburg See on map Total cost No data History National Academy of Sciences of Armenia Armenia EU contribution No data Address 24g Marshal Baghramian Ave. 3741 Yerevan See on map Total cost No data MIUR Universita IUAV di VENEZIA Italy EU contribution No data Address San Polo 2468 30125 Venezia See on map Total cost No data Novgorod Society for the Antiquities Russia EU contribution No data Address Il'ina 26 173000 Velikii Novgorod See on map Total cost No data
