Utrecht University

Do you think science and technology are neutral tools for gaining economic and social prosperity? Do you think innovation is always a good thing? This course questions such assumptions by studying the relationship between science, technology, and society. This relationship is both complex and ambiguous. For example, from a societal perspective, self-driving cars may bring profits to car companies and gains in car safety, but they also raise questions on individual autonomy and responsibility of drivers; genetically modified crops may increase yields but may also increase the power of multinational corporations over smallholder farmers; and contraceptive pills may enable family planning but also put the responsibility for contraceptive measures with women instead of men. In short: science and technology can be highly political, and innovation can have consequences whose desirability can be contested. This course provides students with the tools and perspectives to explore and reflect on such politics and controversies. Theoretical frameworks for understanding the relationship between science, technology, and society, such as large technological systems, actor-network theory, and the social construction of technology are reviewed. 

In our globalizing world, Trans National Corporations (TNC’s) are a well-known reality. All larger corporations have built a global presence to benefit as much as possible from the most efficient conditions for production and consumption. Governments have built their multilateral agencies on global (UN) and regional (EU, AU, Mercosur, Asean) level to better respond to the new reality of an interconnected world in order to be able to better serve the interests of their citizens. In the last few decades we have seen an emerging trend of global civil society organizations (GCSO’s) striving to take their role at the global stage. This works out differently for different types of civil society organizations (CSO’s). CSO’s which are into political advocacy (Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and Oxfam) are building global networks to hold governments and companies accountable about their policies on ecology, human rights, and poverty reduction. With their global brand they are trying to influence global policies in order to make this world safer and more sustainable. In order to be able to act on the global level, different types of CSO’s not only need to deal with organizational issues like building these global networks but they also need to face new issues of legitimacy and accountability. In this course students face these fascinating issues by focusing on crucial cases with Amnesty International, religious organizations, Neighborhood Watch, trade unions, or the GLTB movement. This course helps students understand the shifting role of civil society in the globalization process and the roles of legitimacy and accountability as key issues for civil society’s influence. Knowledge of Introduction to Public Administration and Organizational Science is recommended.

Over the past centuries, economics has changed from a largely verbal discipline that studied human agency in commercial settings, to a mathematical discipline that incorporates scientific instruments such as statistics and laboratory practices. This course retraces this past and to see how modern economics emerged to its present form. Students assess the development of economic ideas, theories, and methods in their appropriate historical context with emphasize on incisive change of the economic discipline from the interwar to the post-war period. The primary objective is to enable students to historically assess the merits and limitations of contemporary economics in addressing major economic and social questions. 
 

This course examines how crime is framed and represented in the media. It covers the interconnections between crime, power and its representation within the media and popular culture; and how relations of power pervade and institutionalize the meanings of deviance and crime and how these meanings can be sedimented or challenged in cultural terms.