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| Udgave: |
Forår 2013 Samf |
| ECTS points: |
10 ECTS |
| Punkter: |
10 ECTS |
Semester: |
Spring 2013 |
| Uddannelsesdel: |
Kandidat niveau |
| Kontaktpersoner: |
Trine Villumsen Berling
(Coordinator for courses in English: Anders Berg-Sørensen)
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| Skema- oplysninger: |
 Vis skema for kurset
Samlet oversigt over tid og sted for alle kurser inden for Lektionsplan for Det Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet Forår 2013 Samf |
| Undervisnings- form: |
The course will consist of lectures, written and oral student discussions and inclusion of external lecturers, who work as experts themselves.
Student participation: Students will be included to a large extent in preparing discussion points from the literature and will be asked to participate actively by acquiring detailed knowledge on specific instances in which science and practical politics meet. The students are advised to find their own case, e.g. a think tank, a report, or a policy area in which experts have been very present. These cases will make the discussions more relevant to the students and they will learn to think about their cases from different perspectives.
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| Indhold: |
Since the RAND Cooperation helped form the US response to strategy in the shadow of the nuclear revolution, expertise has formed an important part of constructing the political. This course will focus on meetings between knowledge/science and practical politics with a special focus on critical perspectives on security expertise. Empirically, the course focuses on security and international relations.
The course will introduce students to the broad discussions about expertise, including classical approaches to professions and the newer ’third wave of science studies’. In addition, we will discuss the New Sociology of Knowledge, Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive take on science, and the issue of knowledge/power.
In the second half of the semester, we will focus on the work of think tanks and different national think tank traditions. Further, we will take up the way IR and security studies have approached the problem of knowledge and science.
Course schedule:
Sociology of expertise
1. Introduction. Knowledge societies, expertise. Experts by attribution and acquisition. (Classical contributions.) Wynne.
2. Classical approaches to the sociology of expertise: Professions etc. + Third Wave of science studies.
3. New ways of producing knowledge: New Sociology of Knowledge and Communities of Practice (Wenger, Jasanoff) (Student presentation of selected case).
4. Knowledge/power. Foucault; (including external lecture by expert).
5. Reflexivity, autonomy, authority: Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of science (Student presentation of selected case).
6. Actor-network: Latour and the network of expertise; STS (including external lecture by expert).
Think Tanks:
7. The middle ground? Inhabiting the gap? (Universities without students, advocacy etc.) (Stone, Abelson, Denham) + The ’gap’ (Traditional approach to the science/policy nexus) (Wallace, and others).
8. Think tank traditions (Anglo-American vs. French and German) STUDENTS responsible for conveying this knowledge to their fellow students. Discussion point: When is knowledge production valid?
IR and Security: How has expertise and knowledge been understood?
9. The making of security studies – Wæver/Buzan about RAND.
10. Epistemic Communities (Adler, Haas). Ideas do not float freely.
11. Poststructuralism in IR: Science as discourse and text (George, Smith, Walker, Hansen).
+ Epistemological authority: The making of the Cold War enemy (Robin, Kaplan).
12. Technological sides of security expertise (Peoples etc.) + STS cases.
13. Securitization and science: Does science work as securitizing or desecurizing factor? (Wæver, Salter, Berling and others).
Concluding remarks
14. Science and practical politics: What have we learnt? Student presentations of cases.
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| Kompetence- beskrivelse: |
This course gives a general understanding of how science and expertise interacts with practical politics, especially with relation to security and international relations. The usefulness of this exercise it to make the student able to evaluate different expert practices in a society prone to mobilizing experts in controversies. This is important for students of political science who will often take up jobs which require a balanced understanding of how knowledge is fed into the political process, whether that be in a public administration, an NGO, a municipality or a private business.
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| Målbeskrivelse: |
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To identify and compare different understandings of knowledge.
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To critically evaluate pros and cons in the different understandings of knowledge: What situation does the concept of knowledge put the expert in?
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To estimate the impact of different combinations of expertise and practical politics in concrete areas of politics.
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Describe the main differences between different types of think tanks, conceptually and across countries.
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Reflect on the dilemmas a philosophy of science puts the security expert in.
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| Lærebøger: |
Abelson DE (2002) Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes, London, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Adler E and Haas PM (1992) Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program. International Organization 46: 367-390.
Bourdieu P (2004) Science of Science and Reflexivity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Brown MB (2009) Science in Democracy. Expertise, Institutions and Representation, Cambridge MA and London: The MIT Press.
Buzan B, Wæver O and Wilde Jd (1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.
Eriksson J and Sundelius B (2005) Molding Minds that Form Policy: How to Make Research Useful. International Studies Perspectives 6: 51-72.
Foucault M (1977) Power / Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, London: Harvester.
Galvin JC (1994) Breaking Through and Being Heard. Mershon International Studies Review 38: 173-174.
George AL (1993) Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.
George J (1994) Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re) Introduction to International Relations, Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Gibbons M, Limoges C, Nowotny H, et al. (1994) The new production of knowledge. The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies, Los Angeles and London: Sage Publications.
Gibbons M, Nowotny H and Scott P (2002) Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty, Oxford: Polity Press.
Hansen L (2006) Security as Practice. Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War, London: Routledge.
Hill C and Beshoff P (1994) Two Worlds of International Relations. Academics, Practitioners and the Trade in Ideas. London: Routledge.
Haas PM (1997) Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Jentleson BW (2002) The Need for Praxis. Bringing Policy Relevance Back In. International Security 26: 169-183.
Kaplan F (1983) The Wizards of Armaggedon, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kruzel J (1994) More a Chasm Than a Gap, But Do Scholars Want to Bridge it? Mershon International Studies Review 38: 179-181.
Latour B (1993) We Have Never Been Modern, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Lepgold J (1998) Is Anyone Listening? International Relations Theory and the Problem of Policy Relevance. Political Science Quarterly 113: 43-62.
Lepgold J and Nincic M (2001) Beyond the Ivory Tower. International Relations Theory and the Issue of Policy Relevance, New York: Columbia University Press.
Robin R (2001) The Making of the Cold War Enemy. Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Rorty R (1989) Contingency, irony, and solidarity, Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Salter MB (2008) Securitization and desecuritization: a dramaturgical analysis of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. Journal of International Relations and Development 11: 321-349.
Smith S (2004) Singing our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and September 11. International Studies Quarterl 48: 499-515.
Stone D and Denham A (2004) Think tank traditions. Policy research and the politics of ideas, Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press.
WYNNE, B. 1982. Rationality and Ritual: The Windscale Inquiry and Nuclear Decisions in Britain, Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, British Society for the History of Science. (Wynne, 1982).
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| Faglige forudsætninger: |
Sociology and IR at BA level. Interest in sociology of science.
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| Eksamensform: |
Free assignment/ Written Examination.
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| Kursus hjemmeside: |
 |
| Undervisnings- sprog: |
Kun engelsk
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| Sidst redigeret: |
5/11-2012 |