Suchergebnisse

Cross-cultural encounters between China and the West date back to the first centuries A.D., when merchants, missionaries and travelers from numerous nations undertook the journey via the Eurasian land route known as the Silk Road. However, the most productive interaction that would profoundly and permanently affect both China and Europe was stimulated by the members of a religious order founded in 1534, namely the Society of Jesus. In the following years the highly intellectual Jesuits would slowly but steadily work their way into the vast realm of Chinese life with the help of an insistent albeit accommodative propagation introducing first and foremost Catholicism, Western sciences like mathematics, astronomy and medicine, philosophy, culture as well as the arts. This policy of accommodation was introduced by the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano (1539- 1606) - responsible father in command of the China mission - and cunningly implemented by celebrated Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610). Rather little attention has been paid to the subject of the arts, regarding their development and changes throughout the time of the Jesuit China missions. Remarkably, even Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743), French Jesuit, geologist and sinologist, who is nowadays seen as the greatest author of the age on China and composer of Description de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise – which includes detailed information on the geography, culture, history, and politics of China, Chinese Central Asia, Tibet and Korea - did only briefly mention the arts in this context (Volume III, p. 1510). Even though his work is the largest and most comprehensive work on China produced by a Jesuit, he was among the Sinologists who never visited China himself. Interestingly, well-known figures such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume and Goldsmith relied on and referred to Du Halde as their principle source of knowledge (Mackerras, 1989). We can therefore view his work as a fundamental element of how China was represented in the West – very positive, charming and slightly propagandistic.

The idea for this thesis arose during my participation in the "United Nations World Summit on the Information Society" (WSIS), which was held in Geneva, December 10-12, 2003. The aim of the thesis is threefold: it describes the mechanisms needed for a non-governmental organization to be successful in lobbying its own interests at a United Nations Summit; it presents a case study of an effective non-governmental organization (NGO), which participated at the Summit; and third, it submits a model roadmap for other NGOs to empower them to attend a United Nations Summit, preferably the second phase of WSIS in Tunis, 2005. This thesis seeks to answer the following questions: What are the factors that enable a non-governmental organization to influence decisions at a United Nations Summit like the World Summit on the Information Society? What are the special requirements for Civil Society members regarding their use of Information and Communication Technology to successfully engage in the decision process of global policy-making? The research is designed around two scientific methods. On the one hand the qualitative analysis of scientific literature was carried out to explore concepts and theories on this subject; on the other hand content analysis was performed to specifically evaluate the broad spectrum of WSIS and the case study. The collection of data was achieved through offline and online literature research and analysis of secondary literature, and analysis of documents and triage of publications ("grey literature") gathered at WSIS.