University of Copenhagen

This interdisciplinary course takes concepts, approaches, and theories from political science, international law, and human geography. It draws mainly on examples from climate change and tropical forestry, but also from other environmental areas. The course consists of six modules: introduction to the general field of global environmental governance; the emergence of ideas and ideologies about global environmental problems and their solutions; global environmental governance actors, architecture, and international relations (perspectives mainly from political science and human geography); state-led global regulation, institutions, and regimes (perspectives mainly from international law); global economic governance, the market, and the environment; the role of non-state actors in global environmental governance. The course includes one or more excursions to national or international organizations located in Copenhagen and knowledgeable about, relevant to, and active in global environmental governance.

This course focuses on economic policy and the welfare state in Denmark through international comparison and examples from other developed countries. It covers classic welfare state topics as well as more recent themes and challenges to modern welfare states, focusing especially on the expenditure side of government. The course has an emphasis on recent empirical research on policy issues, and a focus on how to take theory to the data, critically evaluate the validity of empirical designs, and account for policy implications of research results. Each topic looks at economic facts and status quo policies in Denmark and elsewhere, works with the theoretical framework and economic reasoning behind these policies, discusses empirical evidence and evaluations of “what works” in terms of policy in that area, and covers views from the public debate. The course provides an academic foundation for thinking about different policy questions; an understanding of policy in an applied context and as part of the political system and the public debate; an overview of contemporary economic issues related to the welfare state and public sector in Denmark and other developed countries; and an opportunity for students to think as economists about these issues and account for potential challenges, trade-offs, and solutions in an academic way.

This course focuses on the task of sociology to provide interpretations of the current situation and diagnoses of the times. The first part of the course defines the general meaning of diagnosis of the times and the role this kind of analysis plays in sociology. The second part identifies and distinguishes between various conceptions of social transformation and how modern societies have changed over time, with a study of the most recent structural transformations. The last part of the course focuses on the normative use of social diagnosis to conceive that not only persons but also societies can be understood as sick. The course accounts for how this kind of analysis can be used to evaluate and criticize social change and provides an opportunity to plan and perform research and carry out critical investigations of structural transformations of modern societies and institutions.

This course introduces the general method and use of cost-benefit analysis with a particular emphasis on applications to resource and environmental economics. The course therefore deals with many crucial aspects of environmental cost-benefit analysis to provide the necessary background to assess the validity of practical environmental cost-benefit analyses, as well as to formulate how current guidelines can be improved based on the latest economic research. The course consists of a lecture block that provides an overview and introduces students to key concepts. Assessment is based on a presentation and written assignment on a topic of the student’s choosing. 

This course focuses on presenting theories and empirical data regarding global social inequality. Accounting for a wide range of sociological theories of inequality, it analyzes various theories about what creates differences in wealth between individuals and between different regions in the world. The course investigates inequality in relation to gender, ethnicity, elites, power, health, social mobility, and economy.