Interdisciplinary Learning Platform for Constitutional Liberty

Abstract

NOUS stays for Netzwerk für Ordnungsökonomik und Sozialphilosophie, or in English: “Network for constitutional economics and social philosophy”, please visit the website (https://nous.network/en/) to familiarize yourself with the intentions of the group.

Currently, the Network has about 80 members, world famous professors in constitutional economics and law, history of ideas and institutions, politics and social philosophy. In addition, it cooperates with the Atlas Network and five institutes from Germany. This “German Connection” is logical – the attention to the Economics of Social Order (or constitutional economics, in more international professional slang) was, perhaps, most profoundly elaborated by German and Austrian social philosophers and economists.

It is an information platform and a community for interdisciplinary research. Having met about 40 or so NOUS members personally and for years following their academic and non-academic publications, I am impress by their reasonable, highly intelligent and educated social and political (mostly via wring and media) activism. Practically all NOUS experts are members, founders and key leaders of think tanks, intellectual fora and academic/educational outlets. If I am not mistaken, at least one third of them are also members of the Mont Pelerin Society.

The purpose of NOUS and prime motivation of its members, at least as I understand it, is well described as Das Glasperlenspiel, after Hermann Hesse novel that won him Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946^[1] - a liberal, moderated and enlightened discourse about social order and liberty.

As such the Network organizes events and disseminates publications. The organization of events has accelerated in 2020

The dissemination of publications is done already for six years, and the collection is approximately 120 entries. Few of them disseminate information about notable publications like The Oxford Handbook on Austrian Economics or the Encyclopedia of Law and Economics (by the editors). All other essays and articles (the requirement is that must have been published before appearing on the NOUS website) deal with complex, deliberatively challenging subjects that, for one reason or another, remained and are not well covered by the main stream academia, publishing houses and media. The list of such publications may seem short but is, in fact, very rich. The “Publications” subpage (https://nous.network/en/category/publications-en/) allows downloading from the source of the original publication.

The “Opportunities” subpage would lead members and non-members to different calls for papers, courses, and open professorship, plus graduate and post-graduate programs and scholarships.

Particularly attractive is NOUS’ Young Affiliate Program: https://nous.network/en/network/young-affiliates/. It gives the postgraduate members of YAP access to programs and events; the application is easy…

Let me wish all interested readers pleasant intellectual endeavors,

Krassen Stanchev, Responsible editor

[1] The full title of the novel in English should read “The Glass Bead Game as an Attempt to Describe the Life of Magister Ludi Josef Knecht and the Writings Left by Knecht”.