Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz - INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL SEGGAU

Here you will find information on:

How the International Summer School works

Students will deal with the relevance of Europe/EU and its effect on global affairs by attending one of the following modules in the afternoon:

Law & Politics
Economy & Innovation
History, Power & Leadership
Society & Culture
Ethics & Religion
Media & Communication

In addition to the seminar modules, all students will attend morning and evening lectures. First, lecturers and experts from the fields of the above mentioned modules will approach the overall topic from a cross-disciplinary perspective and then students will be asked to actively participate in a plenary discussion.

Topic/Keynote 2012

"Leadership and Education: The Future of Europe?"

Leadership
Within this summer school we will discuss leadership as European leadership in state, society, and religion on a global level. We will offer examples of European leadership within the areas of fundamental rights, technology, climate change, peaceful cooperation, and global affairs. We will be discussing who will be the leaders of Europe tomorrow, what qualities they need, and which challenges they will face.
Education
Our definition of education encompasses various levels. We will focus on European models of education, and its paradigm shift that was initiated by the introduction of the Bologna Process, as well the implications for education and learning as defined in the Lisbon Agenda 2020. Debates will also include the question of education about Europe and the European Union.
Leadership and Education, and the Future of Europe
The topics addressed in this summer school raise issues of leadership, of values and norms, of identity formation, which transcend the borders of Europe. While it is clear that education is the basis for personal development, social inclusion, economic innovation, and awareness of fundamental rights, Key questions about the future remain open. In a world characterized by rapid change through Europeanization, regionalization, and globalization, leadership and education will be pathways to possible solutions. The right to education is of key importance for a continent whose main resources are knowledge and human capital.

Connecting Cultures

The aim of this interactive session is to facilitate your first contacts with your peers and raise your awareness of how different cultural backgrounds shape our perception and expectations. We will look at intercultural interaction and its challenges and work on how diversity can be enriching, thrilling and provocative at the same time. We will discuss different cultural notions of learning and finally also try to talk about your idea of being a member of a multicultural class during the summer school.

Diana Afrashteh & Ulla Kriebernegg / Karl-Franzens University Graz

ACADEMIC PROGRAM

Morning Lectures (9.00 – 12.00 am)

Lecturer teaching in the afternoon seminars will also give one morning lecture during the week. All students will attend the morning lectures; thus, the topic of these lectures will be directed towards a general audience. After the presentation by the lecturer, there will be a 20min break, after which students will have the chance to ask questions during a plenary discussion.

(More information on the morning lectures will be available soon!)

Seminars (3.00 – 6.00 pm)

According to their interest students choose one of the following seminar modules:

Seminar 1 – Law & Politics

Week 1:"Centralizing Administration in the EU: The "Network" of European and national Authorities" – Stefan Storr

In the seminar we will look how EU authorities gain more and more power and how the network of cooperating national authorities grows. Are these developments in conflict to each other? We will discuss instruments of European governance, the settlement of disagreements between competent national authorities by European authorities and how to develop a common supervisory culture in regulatory fields. The new rules for establishing European Supervisory Authorities in the financial sector and the new proposals for a Fiscal Union will give good examples about new European leadership.

Title for the general lecture: "European Governance– what is it and how does it work?"

Week 2:"Leadership in the EU's external affairs" – Soeren Keil

The European Union has become a very important international actor. It has become a leader in climate-change negotiations and plays a key role in international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The EU has also become a role model for other regions such as the African Union. In particular the EU's economic success, but also its increasingly growing impact on international politics has resulted in the characterisation of the EU as a model for regional cooperation, peace-building and economic development. This module will look at the EU's external relations focusing on relations with the USA, China and Russia, the Western Balkans and EU development policy. We will discuss to what extent the EU has used its own values and history as a framework for cooperation with other states. Furthermore, we will discuss to what extent the EU has acted as a model to encourage regional cooperation particularly in Africa and South-Eastern Asia. We will analyse the EU's external relations by focusing on policy areas in which the EU has become a leading international actor such as economy, environmental protection and human rights promotion.

Title for the general lecture: "Different concept of leadership and unity in Europe Learning from Europe?"

Seminar 2 – Economy & Innovation

Week 1:"Understanding the European Single Market" - Soeren Keil

We will look into the workings of the European Single Market and assess its potential as a model for other regional integration projects
This seminar will focus on four main areas: In the first part we will look at the origins of the European Single Market and how the idea came about as a result of the Second World War and the arising Cold War. We will analyse the European Coal and Steal Community and discuss the Treaty of Rome, which established the principle of a European Single Market in 1957.
In a second step we will look at the practical site of economic integration by discussing the economic elements of the Single Market project. We will focus on the consequences for industries and buisinesses as well as on the consequences for individual citizens.
The third part of the seminar will look at the European Monetary Union as a key element of the Single Market. We will assess the economic benefits of a single currency and discuss some of the current issues and problems that resulted from the introduction of the Euro.
Finally, we will discuss to what extent the European Single Market can be seen as a model for other projects of regional integraton such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the African Union and similar projects in Asia. Can these regions learn from the European experience?

Title for the general lecture: "European economics in times of crisis"

Week 2:"Entrepreneurial and responsible leadership: the challenge for the European business sector." - Joop Vianen

In almost all European countries entrepreneurship is considered to be the key for further economic development. However, society demands other styles of entrepreneurship than in the past, taking into consideration corporate social responsibility and other leadership styles enabling employees to utilize their potentials fully. In this module theoretical and practical aspects of entrepreneurship and leadership as well aspects of corporate social responsibility will be addressed. Special topics that will be discussed are the re-emergence of entrepreneurship in Europe, dilemmas of growing businesses, leadership styles, the psychology of entrepreneurs, corporate social responsibility, culture and leadership etc. Classes will be interactive and innovative and a business excursion is foreseen in the program.

Title for the general lecture: "Entrepreneurial and responsible leadership: the challenge for the European business sector."

Seminar 3 – History, Power & Leadership

Week 1:"Europeanizing the Western Balkans: Are we there yet?" - Robert C. Austin

This module takes as its starting point that the remaining countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) will be joining the European Union. The seminar seeks to explore, in a thematic way, what has been accomplished until now and what remains to be done. It will look at four key components of the EU’s leadership agenda in the region: Multi-ethnicity; Education; Rule of Law/Corruption and Infrastructure. Our goal is to assess these policies, look for areas of success and failure while thinking about alternative approaches and policy recommendations.

Title for the general lecture: "Making Kosovo Work: The European Union’s Transformation Agenda.”

Week 2: "Legacy and Legitimacy in Southeastern Europe" - Florian Bieber

The seminar will discuss the sources of legitimacy of state authority in Southeastern Europe. The case of Southeastern Europe is understood as paradigmatic for a larger European trend of state legitimacy. With frequent border shifts and changes in political regimes, new states and authorities have had to find way to legitimize their rule and command loyalty among its citizens. A particular challenge arose from the contradiction between the state ambitions, esp. in regard to emulating Western models of nation state, and the social reality. Based on this tension and the promise to “catch up” with other regions of Europe, states have sought to legitimize themselves. The seminar will explore state strategies and popular responses and discuss the topic in a longue duree perspective.

Seminar 4 – Society & Culture

Week 1:"European values" – Stephan Möbius

Leadership as well as education are always practices against the background of certain values. Yet, what are the values of Europe? Is there a uniform European canon of values? What are the values shared by all Europeans in spite of various cultural and religious traditions? How do values come into being and how do they change? In this class we want to address these questions. Hence, a selection of relevant texts on topics such as the genesis of values, attachment and commitment to values as well as the cultural values of Europe will be discussed.

Week 2: "Education and the reproduction of privilege: leadership at the intersection of gender, class and ehnicity" - Karin Doolan

The module theoretically and empirically explores social inequalities in education and addresses the contribution these inequalities have for the production of national and global elites. Concepts such as cultural capital, social capital, economic capital, habitus and field, borrowed from Bourdieu’s theory of practice, are offered as theoretical tools with which to unpick how social advantage/disadvantage is reinforced through education. Bourdieu’s class focus is further enriched by encapsulating the intersection of class, gender and ethnicity in order to capture more holistically the dynamics of social reproduction through education. Biographical case studies of political and economic leaders are drawn on in order to illustrate these dynamics at work” and questions are raised about the effectiveness of policies targeting social inequalities in education. Topics discussed also include world rankings of universities, mobility, and neoliberalism and higher education in the context of how they relate to the production of elites.

Title for the general lecture: "How Cameron went to Oxford and Obama went to Harvard - Education, social reproduction and leadership"

Seminar 5 – Ethics and Religion

Week 1: "Some challenges of complex diversity" - Guy LaForest

The seminar will explore some of the challenges that accompany the social and ethical pluralism of our world in the early twenty-first century: the morality of federalism in multinational societies, the multicultural and intercultural models of social integration, and the doctrines of strict and open secularism as they apply to the presence of religion and religious symbols in the public sphere.

For the general lecture the title is: "Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and the Malaise of Modernity"

Week 2: "Leadership and spirituality as Challenge for Europe" – Johan Verstraeten

This seminar will introduce students to a recent development in leadership and management studies: the rediscovery of the role of spirituality. Starting from sociological studies about the shifting opinions of leaders (Mittroff and Denton, Pauchant) and an articulation of the cultural context in which the new attention for spirituality is situated, two types of questions will be raised: (1) whether leadership spirituality can make abstraction from religious traditions (Douglass Hicks) and (2) how individual spirituality need to be connected with a shift in thinking about reality and making history. Subsequently the seminar will elucidate what can be learned about leadership from particular religious and non religious traditions (with a special focus on the work of Chris Lowney and Anselm Grün, Mindfulness and Theory U). Theories will be illustrated with different examples of European Leadership (for example Schumann, Delors, Van Rompuy, Protesters and the Fall of Berlin Wall, Solidarnosc and John Paul II etc...). There will be sufficient room for discussions and confrontation with individual life experience.

For the general lecture the title is: "The Spiritual Roots of European Leadership"

Seminar 6 - Media & Communication

PARTICIPATION OR LEADERSHIP: YOUNG PEOPLE, POLITICS, THE MEDIA – Mirko Petric

This module will explore issues related to young people’s participation in contemporary politics. At its heart will be a discussion of the role of new media in political communication, but it will also pay attention to historical precedents of the current situation. The insights of classical communication theorists such as Merton, Lazarsfeld and Habermas will be analyzed next to contemporary theories describing the third age of political communication”. The topics discussed include the notion of trust in institutions, the role of media literacy in contemporary politics, and a number of other topics related to participation and leadership in the context of mediatized society.

The title of Week 1 seminar: "From Public Space to Public Relations" (Mirko Petric)

The title of Week 2 seminar: "News Media vs. Social Media" (Mirko Petric)

More about the Lecturers

Stefan STORR

University of Graz, Austria

Prof. Stefan Storr studied law in Heidelberg and Munich, graduated in Jena (doctorate and postdoctoral qualification) and has taught as a professor at the universities of Munich and Dresden. Since 2008 he is a professor for Public Law and Economic Law at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Institute for Public, European and Comparative Public Law, Political Science and Science of Public Administration. His research fields are German and Austrian constitutional and administrative law, law of the EU and public economic law.

Karin DOOLAN

University of Zadar, Croatia

Karin Doolan has been Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Zadar in Croatia since October 2011, lecturing in sociology of education, cultural theory and research design. Before taking up this position she worked at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb for 7 years as a researcher and consultant on various projects with a prominent social justice agenda (e.g. gender equity in compulsory schooling, ethnic minorities in Croatia and their participation in school life, social inequalities and higher education access). She has also contributed as a policy analyst to developmental projects both in Croatia and the UK. She received her PhD (2010) and MPhil (2003) in sociology of education from the University of Cambridge and worked on education policy issues as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute (spring term 2010). Her academic interests include theorisations of social reproduction across different political and economic contexts (with a particular interest in Bourdieu’s conceptual tools), critical realism, social identities, theorisations of social justice, as well as the ways in which educational institutions can be organised to contribute to it.

Soeren KEIL

Canterbury Christ Church Universityt, UK

Dr Soeren Keil is a Lecturer in International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. He teaches European Politics and International Relations with a special focus on EU external affairs, nationalism and diversity management and international relations theory. His main research focuses on the Western Balkans and he has published on the role of the EU in the region, power-sharing in divided societies and federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Before joining Canterbury Christ Church University, Dr Keil worked as an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Kent. There he taught European and Comparative Politics. He completed his PhD in 2010 with a dissertation on Multinational Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also holds an MA in International Relations and a Teaching Degree from the University of Kent.

Robert AUSTIN

University of Toronto, Canada

Robert Clegg Austin is a specialist on East Central and Southeastern Europe in historic and contemporary perspective. In the past, Dr. Austin was a Tirana-based correspondent of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; a Slovak-based correspondent with The Economist Group of Publications; and a news writer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Austin has written articles for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Orbis, East European Politics and Societies and East European Quarterly along with numerous book chapters. He now teaches at the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and coordinates the Undergraduate Program in European Studies and the Hungarian Studies Program.

Mirko PETRIC

University of Zadar, Croatia

Mirko Petric is Senior Lecturer in media and cultural theory at the Department of Sociology, University of Zadar. Prior to pursuing a university career (in 1997), he worked as a journalist and copy editor. In spite of his current academic preoccupations, Mirko has never ceased contributing articles and opinion columns to various print media. He is also an active member of civil society, who has initiated or helped organize several digital media campaigns. This year, Mirko´s teaching at Seggau will focus on young people´s participation in politics in the context of mediatized society.

Florian
BIEBER

University of Graz, Austria

Dr Florian Bieber is a Professor of Southeast European Studies and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He was previously Lecturer in East European Politics at the University of Kent, UK. He received his M.A. in Political Science and History and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Vienna, as well as an M.A. in Southeast European Studies from Central European University (Budapest). Between 2001 and 2006, he has been working in Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) for the European Centre for Minority Issues. Florian Bieber is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University and taught at the University of Bologna and the University of Sarajevo. In 2010, he has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and in 2009 he held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University, USA. His also the editor in chief of Nationalities Papers. His research interests include institutional design in multiethnic states, nationalism and ethnic conflict, as well as the political systems of South-eastern Europe. He published articles on institutional design, nationalism and politics in South-eastern Europe in Nationalities Papers, Third World Quarterly, Current History, International Peacekeeping, Ethnopolitcs and other journals. He is the author of Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Miloeviæ (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005, in German) and Post-War Bosnia: Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the Public Sector (London: Palgrave, 2006) and edited and co-edited four books on South-eastern Europe.

John
VER-
STRAETEN

University of Leuven, Belgum

Johan Verstraeten Teaches leadership and spirituality, business ethics, peace ethics and Catholic Social Thought at the University of Leuven. Research interest in ethics and the spirituality of leadership. Member of the editorial board of Business Ethics. A European Review, Ethical Perspectives and Journal of Catholic Social Thought. Licentiate in Philosophy, Ph. D in Religious Studies, STD. Worked at the university of Leuven from 1982-1987 as researcher at the Department of Political Sciences and from 1987-1990 as researcher at the Faculty of Economic Sciences (Center for Ethics and Economics). Was from 1990-2000 director of the Center for Ethics and is actually full professor at the research unit Theological Ethics (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies). From 1997-2000 extraordinary professor of Business Ethics at the University of Tilburg and regularly guest professor at TIAS (Tilburg Institute of Advanced Studies) and the Avicenna Academy of Leadership

Stephan
MOEBIUS

University of Graz, Austria

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Stephan Moebius completed his PhD in sociology in 2002, University of Bremen. In 2005 he also obtained his habilitation (Das Collège de Sociologie. Eine soziologiegeschichtliche Analyse) from this university. Currently he is teaching history of sociology, cultural sociology sociological theory and sociology of religion at Karl-Franzens University Graz. Since 2009 he is also a full professor for »Sociological Theory and History of Ideas« at the Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Austria. His research interest reaches from fields such as History of Social and Cultural Sciences, Cultural Sociology, Sociological Theory, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Intellectuals, to the fields of Poststructuralism, Pragmatism and Praxeology.

Guy
LAFOREST

Laval University, Canada

Professor of Political Science at Université Laval, Québec, Canada. He teaches Political Theory, Canadian Constitutional Politics, Theories of Federalism and of Nationalism, Intellectual History in Québec and elsewhere in Canada. Beyond Canada, he is interested in comparative research with Great Britain and Spain, where he regularly teaches and attends conferences. He is a member of GRSP (Groupe de recherches sur les sociétés plurinationales) and of CRIDAQ (Centre de recherches interuniversitaires sur la diversité au Québec. Most recent publication: Michel Seymour and Guy Laforest (eds), Le fédéralisme multinational: Un modèle viable? Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2011.

Joop
VIANEN

Tilburg University, Netherlands

At the Faculty of Economics and Business of Tilburg University, the Netherlands Joop Vianen is teaching entrepreneurship, leadership and small business economics/ management and Coordinator of the Program for leadership development of excellent students.

Being educated as development economist he has worked as researcher/consultant at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, FAO/United Nations and the Netherlands Economic Institute. He has a long experience in boards of directors of among others the Economic Institute for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (EIM) and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the Netherlands. He is cofounder and former president of the European Council Small Business and the European Network for Small Business Research.Moreover he has extending experience in training entrepreneurs and as policy consultant in many countries worldwide.

Certificate/ETCS

Participants will receive a certificate of participation at the end of the summer school. Furthermore, it is possible for participants to gain 6 ECTS credits points in this summer school project. To obtain these credits, students have to participate in the full program AND write a seminar paper. This paper has to be written for one of the lecturers of the afternoon seminars.

Program Schedule 2012

Program Activities/Excursion

Besides the morning lectures and the seminars in the afternoon, students will go on a one-day excursion to Graz, the capital city of the province of Styria. This one-day trip to Graz will include a visit to the Karl-Franzens-University, sightseeing through Graz and sure also some time for you to stroll around within the unique city of Graz. We will give you more details about that excursion during the first week of the summer school. (Visit: http://www.graz.at )

There is an outdoor swimming pool at the venue; you can also play volley ball or football at the green, or play table tennis. Furthermore, we will organize movie nights, a karaoke evening and you will have a wine tasting at the Seggau Castle, which is famous for its excellent local wine. You may also want to walk down to the small city of “Leibnitz”, just some walking minutes away from Seggau Castle.