"Probleme der Übersetzung religiöser Texte" war das Thema eines internationalen, interreligiösen Symposions des EKO-Hauses der Japanischen Kultur in Düsseldorf. Der vorliegende Beitrag unterscheidet 4 Typen der Mehrdeutigkeit. Unter Typ 4 fallen Begriffe, die auf verschiedenen Ebenen unterschiedliche Bedeutungen haben. Sie werden in bestimmten religiösen Texten bewußt eingesetzt, wie Beispiele aus dem Sufismus und dem Tantrismus in Originalübersetzungen zeigen.
Im Mittelpunkt der Dissertation "Bhakti und Shakti: Göttliche und menschliche agency im Kontext des Heilkults der Göttin Harati in Nepal" stehen weibliche Heilerinnen aus der Bevölkerungsgruppe der Newar, die regelmäßig von der Göttin Harati und deren Kinder besessen werden und einen Heilkult etabliert haben. Das Hauptanliegen der Arbeit besteht in der Frage nach der Handlungsmacht der am Kult beteiligten Frauen. Dabei wird nicht nur die alltägliche agency der Frauen untersucht, sondern auch das Zusammenspiel mit der agency der Gottheiten, von denen sie besessen werden. Außerdem wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern die religiöse Praxis der Frauen als Widerstand gegen die soziale und religiöse Ordnung verstanden werden kann und ob die Frauen durch den Heilkult ihre Handlungsmacht (agency) erweitern. Im ersten Kapitel "Annäherungen" wird die Geschichte Nepals, die Bevölkerungsgruppe der Newar, deren Kastensystem und Pantheon abgehandelt und in einem Exkurs ausführlich auf die zentrale Gotheit des Kults, die Göttin Harati, eingegangen. Im Anschluss daran wird das Konzept "agency" erläutert und der Begriff "Medium" von denen für "Orakel" und "Schamane" abgegrenzt. Im zweiten Kapitel "Medium werden" werden die Lebensgeschichten zweier Medien vorgestellt und ihre Erzählungen daraufhin untersucht, welche Handlungskompetenzen darin sichtbar werden. Zum einen geht es dabei um die Handlungskompetenzen der Frauen selbst und zum anderen um die Manifestation einer göttlichen agency. In Exkursen wird u.a. auf die Institution der lebenden Göttin (Kumari), auf die tantrische Initation (diksa) und auf den Diskurs über Hexen in Nepal eingegangen. Darüber hinaus wird in diesem Kapitel die Anwendung der Theorie von Ioan Lewis zu "peripherer" und "zentraler" Besessenheit auf Nepal durch David Gellner kritisch hinterfragt. Im dritten Kapitel "Medium sein" wird auf den rituellen Alltag der Medien eingegangen, indem die Heilsitzungen mit ihren Diagnose- und Heilverfahren beschrieben werden und das Pantheon der Medien vorgestellt wird. Auf die Besonderheit dieses Pantheons, das wie eine Familie strukturiert ist, mit einer zentralen Mutterfigur, starken weiblichen Mitgliedern und ferneren männlichen Mitgliedern wird in weiteren Unterkapiteln eingegangen. Die letzten drei Unterkapitel beschäftigen sich mit der speziellen göttlichen Kraft (sakti), mit den Regeln oder "Gesetzen" der Medien und dem Sinn der Hingabe (bhakti). Das vierte Kapitel ist der Durchführung, der Analyse und Interpretation eines selten durchgeführten Rituals im Rahmen des Harati-Kults gewidmet. Im Schlusskapitel wird die Frage nach der agency wieder aufgegriffen. Anhand von Beispielen aus den einzelnen Kapiteln wird deutlich gemacht, dass sich die alltägliche Handlungsmacht der beteiligten Frauen nicht nur erweitern kann, sondern dass sich im Heilkult auch eine andere Art von agency zeigt und zwar eine von Menschen und Gottheiten geteilte agency und dass die soziale Wirksamkeit des Heilkults in der Transformation der alltäglichen in eine göttliche agency und deren Wechselspiel beruht.
In 2002, Kashmir once again virtually led the two countries, India and Pakistan, to another war. And this time the fear was that it could even escalate into a nuclear war. Had it not been for the enormous pressure built upon both the states by the international community, most notably the United States, the matters could have gone out of hand. But the problem of deep distrust with which both the states seem to be congenitally afflicted still remains. Drawing upon historical sources and current politics, the article explores the recognition of the line of control that separates India controlled parts of Jammu and Kashmir from the areas under Pakistani control as a possible solution to this vexed issue.
India and South Africa share a similar historical outcome as concerns their party systems albeit within very different temporal and spatial contexts. India’s system of one-party-dominance (OPD) was electorally terminated in 1977 when for the first time in the country’s history the Indian National Congress was ousted from office and power by the Janata Party, a multi-party electoral platform comprising four major opposition parties. South Africa so far had only two general (democratic) elections (1994 and 1999) wherein the African National Congress won an overwhelming share of the popular vote (62,65% and 66,35% respectively), but which do not allow to make an assessment of the country’s party system without some qualifications regarding the dynamic nature of a pattern of party competition still in the making. What are the causal factors that made the emergence of a system of OPD in India after independence possible and make it likely in the South Africa of today? Why was it that a single party in a competitive democratic environment succeeded in winning one election after another amidst processes of massive social change, and, why is it that a single party is still able to do so at the end of the twentieth century? What did OPD do to the political and socio-economic development in the world’s largest democracy, and, what will be the effects of its working in the world’s most amazing democracy? Taking India as the locus classicus of OPD in changing societies, this paper is an attempt to draw advantage from a diachronic comparison between the Indian party system after independence and the emerging one in South Africa in order to free the political phenomenon of ‘OPD’ from some of the theoretical and conceptual flaws surrounding it, to examine common thinking about a party systems’ emergence and working on the basis of two regional realities, and, finally, to enrich the current scholarly hypothesising about the correlation between the nature of the party system and processes of democratic consolidation and socio-economic development with some empirical backing.
Untouchability has always been a key problem of Indian anthropology; but like many other issues, it has been treated as an abstract concept that existed outside time. The first theoreticians of caste had no first-hand knowledge of Untouchables, and tended to base their theories on sacred Hindu texts that had little to do with contemporary life. They stressed the integration of Untouchables into Indian society. Later on, the first village studies concentrated on multi-caste settlements and approached the Untouchables’ reality in the presence of high-caste villagers. They were again biased towards a harmonious view of the problem. Srinivas himself was honest enough to recognize that his knowledge of the Untouchables was on the whole unsatisfactory: “Though I knew several Muslims and Harijans well, I did not know these two sections of village society as intimately as I wanted to. I would have obtained a new angle on the village if I had spent more time in their areas”. Those first ethnographers largely confirmed the views of the theoreticians of castes and Sanskritists, who emphasized the rather harmonious character of village society and the perfect integration of Untouchables into the social organization. Then came a new generation of scholars, who studied the Untouchables for themselves. In a famous study, Moffatt made an important – though largely unnoticed – point: he notices that these scholars were on the whole quite sympathetic to the Untouchables and wished to emphasize the distance between the latter and the rest of society. Psychologically, this is quite understandable. Researchers wish to show that their study has contributed something new, and, in this particular case, they set up what Moffatt calls “models of separation,” in other words models that implied a great distance between Untouchables and the rest of society. There was thus a tendency to foreground the persistence of discrimination. This was particularly true of studies led by Westerners, since Indian anthropologists were much more preoccupied with social change and the way untouchability was – slowly but surely – disappearing. Unfortunately, the numerous studies entitled Social Change in India did not always match what one could expect from modern anthropological research, and they tended to be neglected in a debate that, in the West, remained largely dominated by structuralist considerations, caring little about social change. Yet, those studies made some important points: they assumed firstly that Indian society was changing, and secondly, in a very post-Independence fashion, that untouchability had to disappear sooner or later. As I said, the problem of those studies was that they often relied upon inadequate evidence, very often tables compiled from a simple, even a simplistic, questionnaire. That is perhaps one of the reasons that explain their lack of impact. Yet, their assumptions were right, as they were concerned with a changing reality. Having devoted a great deal of my time to the study of Untouchables, I now think it is time to stop considering things as if caste and untouchability were unchanging institutions. For instance, it seems pretty obvious to me that social realities are no longer what they were (or what they were supposed to have been): high castes have changed, Untouchables have changed, the society at large has changed and castes, in particular, have also changed. I would go further, and claim that, fifty years after Independence, Indian Untouchables have come a long way and made remarkable progress. True enough, the vast majority of them remain poor; but poverty is an economic, not a caste, condition. The problem of poverty in India cannot be reduced to caste and one finds poor people basically in all caste groups: according to the various estimates, between 30 and 60 per cent of the Indian population live under the so-called “poverty line,” whereas Untouchables are only 15 per cent. In any case, the question of ritual pollution no longer plays a major role in maintaining them at the bottom of society. Finally they form less than ever a homogeneous social category: owing to the state’s protective measures, but also to their own dynamism and courage, many among them have climbed the social ladder. The fact remains that caste tends to play a growing role in contemporary India. However, this situation is perhaps less the continuity of tradition than a recent outcome linked to the post-Independence situation. In modern India, it is not relative purity that lies at the basis of caste struggles. Castes now fight because they have to compete for limited economic and political resources. This is also true of Untouchables, who may become a major force within Indian politics.
Ever since India achieved independence in 1947, its response to global nuclear non-proliferation measures has been a dominant theme in the country’s overall evolution of nuclear policy. However, India conducted a nuclear test in 1974, which it termed a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ and in 1998, India conducted a full-scale nuclear test and subsequently claimed to have attained nuclear capability. The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate key elements of India’s draft nuclear doctrine. The draft was presented to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in August 1999 and released later for public debate by the National Security Advisory Board.
Contrary to the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the Indian Ocean has not so far developed an overarching security system that could meet the challenge of maritime security. Based on the findings of a research project, the paper provides an analysis of the current post-Cold War security environment in the Indian Ocean in the perception of leading members of its epistemic community: Is the current security environment in the Indian Ocean conducive for the development of a maritime security system as suggested in the literature? Is there any real interest in such ventures? And, is the Indian Ocean perceived as a 'region' at all? This paper argues that all these questions have to be answered in the negative for the time being.
The strengthening of women's participation in all spheres of life has become a major issue in the discourse of economic and social development in the last decades. Virtually every international and bilateral development agency has proclaimed policies to integrate women better into economic and social processes. The promotion of women in politics, however, especially if it is supposed to be implemented through affirmative action is still contested. This is in spite of the fact that women, who form around 50% of total world population, share a considerably lower presence in elected political bodies: Women made up only 11.6% of MPs in 176 parliaments in 1995 (IDEA 2002). Apparently universal franchise is inadequate to overcome structural constraints that impede female presence in political offices. Thus, despite their numerical strength, women are still a minority in respect to political power and positions occupied. Interestingly enough India is one of the countries where a women's quota of 33% was introduced at least at the local level. The same strategy for the State Assemblies and the National Parliament is still highly contested and the so-called "Women's Bill" failed thrice to be passed so far. At the same time, some readers might be astonished that India has realised a women's quota at all, since India is often portrayed as backward in regard to women's position in society. News on dowry deaths, widow burning, and the abortion of female foetuses still dominate the rather undifferentiated public image of India. Nevertheless, in 1992 the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution laid down new rules for the establishment and design of rural local government (called Panchayati Raj). This Amendment also stipulates that at least 33% of the seats and positions have to be filled by women. Proponents of this measure believe that the quota for women will lead to their empowerment, whereas critics claim that those women will be mere "proxies" for influential males and will be mainly drawn from the elite. The opponents furthermore point out that women in rural India are not equipped for participating in politics, since they lack basic qualifications. Indeed, India's rural social structure can still be characterized as being predominantly patriarchal. Women face restricted mobility in the public space; yet, this differs with respect to caste, class, religion as well as age and family status. As already mentioned, treating women as a political group with common concerns provokes the question in how far gender actually transcends caste, class or ethnic affiliation. Which interests should the elected women represent - those of other women, of their caste, clan or religious community? How can rural women, who are initially without doubt less equipped for political office (lower formal education, less political experience, less public exposure etc.), overcome these inhibitions? And how do male colleagues, officials and the village communities react if they are forced to elect and deal with female representatives? In order to pay tribute to the contextual nature of empowerment this study was conducted in a single State of the Indian Union. Orissa was selected because it is in one of the most "backward" States in the Indian Union and thus presents an environment that is not very conducive for women's empowerment to begin with. If one can prove that empowerment happens in such a setting, it is fair to assume that it should definitely take place in a location which provides better conditions, like, e.g. in a State like Kerala. Therefore, the selection of a "worst-case scenario" permits to draw more general conclusions. A quantitative survey was conducted with 105 women and 80 men mainly at the gram panchayat and few at the panchayat samiti level during the first field trip in 1998/99. In the second round in 1999/2000, selected female representatives, male panchayat members, officials, villagers and women's groups were interviewed in intensive semi-structured interviews.
In this contribution I would like to focus on the four countries in South Asia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as a region of conflicts, ask questions about the specific conflict constellations existing in the region and by applying indicator oriented empirical research to the four countries I try to explain the political confrontations occurring during the period between 1945 and 2002. This article is structured according to the following logic: First of all, the structural reality of a country’s endangerment/insecurity and support/security as well as - deduced from this - its ability to resolve conflicts are operationalized and put into measurable quantities. In this way we identify the regime’s political management capabilities and, independent of the measurements mentioned before, its character. Then, the variable ‘conflict’, which is to be explained, is presented and the modality of resolving conflicts is considered. Finally, an index of resolution is calculated that shows which states and which regimes can or could respectively best deal with conflicts. At the same time, the index serves to identify specifically endangered states and through pointing out the supporting factors to discuss the possibilities of non-violent ways to resolve conflicts.
India’s nuclear build-up, which culminated in the 1998 nuclear tests and India’s subsequent self-declaration as a nuclear power, bears several puzzles for academic research in the field of strategic studies, as it appears difficult to identify clear strategic motives behind it. In its relations to arch rival Pakistan, the introduction of nuclear weapons was strategically rather counter productive for India, as the equalising effects of these weapons diminished much of India’s overwhelming superiority in conventional weaponry. Many academics therefore stress the so-called ‘China factor’, that is, the threat to Indian security posed by the nuclear-armed neighbour in the north, as the reason for India’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. This argument, however, appears to be not sound enough to solely explain the course of India’s nuclearisation, as the conflicting interests at stake are of too little relevance to justify the substantial financial and political sacrifice involved. Thus, a majority of studies on the nuclear build-up in South Asia concludes that a significant, if not dominating part of the explanatory variables lies outside of the classical strategic realm. However, stringent explanatory models which account for the key role of non-strategic motives behind India’s nuclear build-up are largely missing. Prime objective of the present paper is to reduce this gap by sketching a possible model to explain how the interplay of several contradicting national interests at stake, being either strategic or non-strategic in nature, contributed to India’s decision to pass the nuclear threshold. Within the applied model, the structure of the international system in South Asia clearly sets the framework for India’s international action. Structural conditions, however, are not transformed directly into India’ strategic policy formulation, but rather distorted by intervening factors at the national level. The strong threat perception emerging from Pakistan among India’s elite, and, at the same time, the remarkable indifference of the elite as well as public at large towards China, does not correspond to the actual relative power capabilities within the system, nor do these threat perceptions sufficiently explain India’s nuclear course. The present model, which is itself based on the paradigms of Neo-classical Realism, departs from conventional explanatory models in two fundamental aspects: First, state interaction is not exclusively explained by the structure of the international system, but rather by the interplay between systemic variables such as the states’ relative power capabilities, and intervening variables at the unit-level. Second, state interests are not defined exclusively in terms of security maximisation. The emphasis of the present paper on an in-depth analysis of the particular interests at stake appears justified considering the non-security motives behind India’s self-declaration as nuclear weapon state. The paper starts with a general description of the South Asian context within the field of International Relations, and the particularities of this region in regard to the applicability of the conventional IR models. Then, the international system which sets the framework for India’s strategic policy-making is outlined. The central part of the paper is an evaluation of intervening factors on the national level. Several domestic dynamics within India’s policy decision-making process regularly overlap structural conditions in shaping India’s national interest formulation. The most striking interests at stake are India’s aversion to the existing international non-proliferation regime, as well as domestic factors, such as India’s ad hoc, non-institutionalised nuclear decision-making process, dynamics emerging from India’s democratic structure, and the key role of certain pressure groups like the defence scientists and the strategic analysts.
India?s new and contested status as a nuclear power, the scale of her arms purchases, her investment in missile technology and the huge deployment of ground troops on the western front against Pakistan are issues of immediate concern to her South Asian neighbours. Since tension feeds on tension, war in Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Kolkata, Delhi, Jammu and Srinagar, mounting tension between India and Pakistan over the issue of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir and the recent threat by General Pervez Musharraf to consider the first strike option as part of Pakistan?s strategic response to Indian mobilisation have contributed to the seriousness of the situation. The probability of the regional conflict escalating into large scale nuclear war, or weapons of mass destruction finding their way into the hands of non-state actors, have drawn world attention to South Asia, which has had visits in quick succession by political leaders and military delegations from the United States, UK, Germany, France, China and Russia. The paper, focused on India?s capacities, perceptions and institutional arrangements for the management of security, seeks to evaluate the significance of her status as an ?emerging? power for the security environment in Asia, and its implication for the international system. It analyses the main objective both empirically, and theoretically. The empirical aspect concerns the measurement of India?s economic and military resources according to the conventional indicators of power. These facts, based on experts? accounts, are supplemented by political and institutional factors which are significant for the estimation of the power of a country. In addition, the analysis seeks to juxtapose the views of observers and actors, and locate the strategic perception of the Indian voter, an important factor in her political landscape in view of her active democratic process. These factors of contemporary politics are to be seen in the larger context of India?s political and security culture, history, the structure of the political system. The issue of contextualisation needs to be understood in terms of its methodological implication at the outset, because, while all states are members of the international system, the use to which they put international politics varies from one context to another. Western nation states, products of a long process of nation building, industrialisation and state-formation, seek the promotion of national interest through their strategic initiatives. Post-colonial state-nations, engaged in the process of nation-creation, are more complex in their rhetoric. For these actors, international politics, in addition to being used as an instrument of national interest, also plays a symbolic role in the building of a national profile. The paper seeks to combine both the material and symbolic aspects of Indian policy in the concept of a security doctrine, one that can bring potential power into an effective focus, in the absence of which mere appurtenances of power like guns and ships are just that and not much more. Since the stability of the doctrine, in addition to its coherence is an important parameter of the significance of Indian power, the paper also takes into account the problems of implementation as well. Though there is considerable force to the argument that South Asian security is crucially contingent on the India-China-Pakistan triangle, India remains the biggest power in South Asia, and her significance, in terms of how India sees herself and how others see her, is a key consideration for regional politics. The need for a sophisticated methodological analysis arises paradoxically from the fact that India is a democratic state and an open society, both of which give a false sense of visibility to India?s security profile. Foreign observers, depending on their own national origin and the context, place their bets on predictions of India?s next move either as the ?regional bully? or the ?regional push-over?, and India, Janus-like, often proves both speculations to be right, appearing in the process to be either mystical-moral, or utterly devoid of principle or doctrine. The paper is in three parts. The first examines the state of play by ranking India with reference to her strategic resource endowments. The second part examines India?s strategic doctrine and the organigram of security, and evaluates her potential power in the light of her doctrine. The third part makes a prognosis of the challenging path ahead for India with reference to the unsolved problems concerning her national security. The conclusion reconsiders the main issue posed in the introduction in the light of the analysis undertaken here.
Apart from an extensive survey of the literature on the economics of corporate bankruptcy law, this thesis contains three own contributions: First, a model is presented where a firm's manager acquires some private information about whether a firm should be liquidated or stay in business. Providing the manager with suitable incentives to act in the investors' interest may be socially efficient, but not individually rational for the investors themselves. A second-best arrangement will be specified, and it will be shown how investors can be induced to implement it by means of an optimal bankruptcy code in the case where only standard financial contracts are available. The theory explains why bankruptcy law should, in some states of nature, let shareholders and senior creditors decide jointly, and provides a rationale for the existence of junior debt, which never enjoys any power of decision. Secondly, the topic of private debt workouts is taken up. It has often been argued that the coercive character of bond exchange offers leads to an inefficient liquidation policy, and that legal regulations are called for. In contrast to this claim, it will be argued here that such bondholder coercion will be anticipated when contracts are written out, so that the second-best arrangement will be obtained under any of the legal settings considered in the literature. Finally, there is a theoretical analysis and an empirical study of the incentives associated with Indian bankruptcy law, the key feature of which is that poorly performing firms are declared 'sick' and thereafter are run under governmental control. It is argued that governors have strong incentives to induce firms to choose a higher leverage by providing subsidized loans, because higher leverage increases the probability of financial distress, in which case the governor can implement his own conceptions of running the firm more easily. The model is applied to a data-set of some 2500 Indian manufacturing firms, and the basic model implications are confirmed.
Untersuchung mit dem zentralen Ziel der Bestimmung von kontrollierbaren Erfolgsfaktoren bei Auslandsniederlassung. Basierend auf dem kontingenztheoretischen Ansatz wird eine erfolgsoptimierende Ausrichtung der gestaltbaren Faktoren auf die nicht oder wenig beeinflussbaren Faktoren angenommen. Eine empirische Untersuchung wendet nach dem Ansatz von strategischen Gruppen Faktor- und Clusteranalysen an, um Erfolgsfaktoren für deutsche und amerikanische Niederlassungen in Singapur zu ermitteln. Es erweisen sich Wettbewerbsstrategien der Produktdifferenzierung und Kundenorientierung sowie eine normative Integration zum HQ erfolgsfördernd.