Projects
Global IP law and local politics: The political economy of African seed business law KU Leuven
The World Trade Organisation has promoted Western-styled intellectual property (IP) norms around the world. This IP-related endeavours can be seen as part of a global move in the direction of less state and more private entrepreneurship. Whereas some ‘orthodox’ development scholars have welcomed the turn towards market institutions in development policy, other ‘critical’ development scholars have argued that Western IP norms are ill-suited to ...
Sabbatical Jan Schmidt: Chambers of Power and Imperial Knowledge in Transition – Japanese Chambers of Commerce and Industry as Political and Cultural Actors connecting local, (trans)national, regional and global dimensions, 1910s-1970s KU Leuven
During this sabbatical period I would like to work on my next book project for a monograph on the political and cultural history of Japanese business associations in the relations to the Japanese State (Empire until 1945) in a global history perspective from the 1910s to 1970s. This is also related to part of a C1 application (C1I-21-00428: Non-Western Agency in the Development of Global Governance during the 1920s-1950s – The Case of Japan: ...
Global and local dynamics in thermally active magnetic many-body systems Ghent University
The behaviour of individual magnets with nanometer dimensions is relatively simple, but when a large number of them are combined, some very surprising and exciting phenomena will appear due to their mutual interactions. For instance, magnets want to align with their neighbours. However, in an ordered structure like a honeycomb lattice, this is not possible for every magnet. Even in the most optimal configuration, there still are magnets which ...
Syntax in Language and Music : Overlap in Local and Global Structure Processing Ghent University
This research project focuses on the relationship between syntactic processing in language and music, both at the level of global structural configuration and at the level of specific syntactic rules. We shall use paradigms of (musical) syntactic priming and syntactic interference research. This project will contribute to linguistic syntax processing research, and further introduce music as a domain of research.
The Local, The Global, and the Intellectual Universe of Izutsu Toshihiko: An inquiry into the question of how to understand other cultures Ghent University
Toshihiko Izutsu was one of the world's leading experts in Islam studies in the 20th century, and, moreover, an outstanding philosopher and pioneer in comparative and intercultural philosophy. In Izutsu's work a methodological foundation for a philosophy of the practice of intercultural understanding is ideally inherent. To uncover this methodology would be the most important contribution of this project.
Policy Research Centre - Governmental organization in Flanders II: local governance. The impact of networks on local policy, politics and management Ghent University
Local governments become involved in a more network-like governance context. 'Local policy' and 'local straegy', often used in terms of 'autonomous organisation', become the product of these interactions. This evolution provokes questions on the meaning of 'local politics' and 'local policy', on the capacities of municipalities to function in these networks and on the way municipalities should organise themselves.
The shape and impact of ideological competition in local politics. A study of local party manifestos in Flanders Ghent University
This project wants to take a closer look at the shape and impact of ideological competition in Flemish local politics. By means of a quantitative analysis of local party manifestos we study the structure of electoral conflict and the differences between parties. Combined with other data we will also assess the role of ideological competition for voters, candidates and coalitions.
WomenU+2019s Participation in Decentralized Local Governance: The case of Pastoral and Non-Pastoral Women in Kondoa Local Authority, Tanzania. Ghent University
This research explores womenU+2019s participation in decentralized local governance in Tanzania. Specifically, the research explores how, why and the effect of pastoral and non-pastoral womenU+2019s participation in decentralized local governance. There has been a body of research done about participation and gender in Tanzania, however, limited information exists about womenU+2019s participation in governance beyond numbers.
Impact of local topology and local adaptation on network behaviour Ghent University
The research topics of this project are the use of biologically inspired principles in artificial neural networks, and the study of local and global network topologies. I develop a process for generating biologically plausible ANNs for complex temporal tasks. I start from state-of-the-art echo state networks.