“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

These words of Albert Einstein are more valid today than ever. The complexities of today’s societies and the relationships between them are manifold and not easy to handle. Einstein’s plea to look at them in a different way is exactly what this course is about. The course aims to change your perspective on the world, so that you find that ‘the stuff of the world’ can be thought about in new ways that offer opportunities for interventions and passageways for improvement. After all, making a difference requires more than decisiveness: it requires thinking in new ways, thinking ‘out of the box’. And that is exactly what this course aims to do by introducing you to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

In the field of STS, science and technology are considered as a socio-cultural phenomenon. You will be introduced in the STS in two courses. In the course (this one) we will focus on interrelation between technology and society, while in period 2 (HUM3049: Science, Power, and the Construction of Facts), we take the next step and zoom in on the constitution and application of science and its relations with society. This implies that in both cases we will pay attention to the social, cultural, historical, political, and economic conditions that impact the development and application of science and technology.

In this first course we unpack ‘technology’. In the standard perspective technology is largely seen as a process of applied science that simply results from previous scientific advances. In our daily routines we also tend not to spend much thought on the making of science and technology, commonly do not merit its use serious reflection either. Once things have been made or discovered, our interaction with them is understood to be a straightforward matter. We pick up our mobile phone, make some funny pictures with it, listen to music, twitter some details about what we do and where we are and chat with our friends. We board an airplane, fly from point A to point B, and then we get off the airplane. Although we are surrounded by the results of scientific endeavor and technologies of various kinds, they have become almost invisible, and we take them for granted. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) challenges this perspective on science and technology.

We live in a technological culture. Technology and science shape society, from the shaping of mobility patterns, gender and sexual identities to the standardization of practices in health care. Mobile phones have changed what it means ‘to be alone’; organ transplantation has redefined our understanding of life; and AI is changing our ways of being creative. Thus, technologies do not merely assist us in our everyday lives; they are also powerful forces acting to reshape our activities and their meanings. There is, vice versa, a cultural influence on technology too. Therefore, it is important for understanding technology to acknowledge their socio-cultural base. Historical and comparative studies have shown how different socio-cultural circumstances yield very different forms and contents of science and technology. Science and technology are, finally, also cultures themselves.

This course studies markets for information goods and gives an introduction to the economics of uncertainty and information.

The term “information good” is very broad and includes, in principle, everything that can be digitized, such as books, databases, music, etc. As a consequence, trade often takes place via the Internet. Information goods have special characteristics. For example, they typically have a special cost structure with high fixed costs but low marginal costs: making a copy of digital content has essentially no cost. We study several topics such as pricing, network effects, and lock-in. One focus will be on “platforms” (e.g., Apple’s App Store, Google Search Engine, Netflix), which are often key players in markets for information goods.

At the beginning, we introduce concepts from pricing and game theory, reviewing and extending contents of SSC1027 Principles of Economics. These concepts are useful because markets for information goods are often competitive but not perfectly competitive. Thus, firms can experiment with pricing and selling strategies, but they must take into account how potential competitors will respond.

The economics of uncertainty and information studies the role that information plays in the decisions and interactions of individuals, the design of contracts, and the working of markets. In many situations, individuals lack important information before making a decision. For example, sellers don’t know their customers’ willingness to pay, and investors don’t know which investment opportunities yield the highest profit. Often, information is not only incomplete but also asymmetrically distributed among the relevant parties (“adverse selection”, “moral hazard”). Examples include job applications, where the applicant knows more about his/her abilities than the employer, or insurance contracts, where the insurance company cannot observe the insuree’s effort in preventing damages. A central insight is that asymmetric distribution of information often leads to economic inefficiency.

This course critically focuses on structural issues of development on a global scale. Globalization refers to the increasing interdependence of markets, states and civil societies and the resulting effects on people and their environment. By also focusing on inequality, the structural differentiation among actors in terms of access to means, opportunities and resources, issues of (re-)distribution are taken into account as well. The course investigates inequalities and interdependencies on a global, international, national and local level, while considering the role of public, private and civil society actors. Thus, it aims to understand the underlying development processes and unlock the ongoing debates. The course focuses on the following themes: globalization and development; the Global Goals for Sustainable Development; a history of inequality; the agencies of development; democratization, human rights and development; health and development; global migration and remittances; and food security, natural resources and global crises.

Environmental problems such as chemical pollution, global warming, acid rain or species loss are both material effects of the human interaction with nature and nexuses of social practice and political contestation. This course probes the entanglements of nature, society, and politics through which the environment is formed, experienced, problematized, interpreted, and contested, and governed in different socio-cultural contexts. It helps students to develop a critical perspective on the dominant patterns of industrial production and consumption, and to ask how our societies can be made more sustainable. The course draws on insights from environmental history, environmental sociology, science and technology studies, sustainability studies, and recent debates on the “Anthropocene”. Thereby, it seeks to complement the fact-oriented perspective of the natural sciences with a reflective understanding of the politics through which our knowledge (and non-knowledge) of the environment is formed. The course is structured in four sections. The first three each focus on one core domain of nature-society-politics: the risks of industrial production; biodiversity and land; global climate change. The final section reflects on how we can move from these insights towards a comprehensive understanding and transformative politics of the Anthropocene.

This course focuses on the institutions of the European Union. At the same time, this course provides an opportunity for students to be exposed to legal thinking. Law is central to the process of European integration, and it plays a greater role in European affairs than it does at national or international level. It is accordingly essential for students to become familiar with the ways of legal thought and legal reasoning, if they want to understand fully the European integration process, and European matters more generally.

The recent revival of economic nationalism in various parts of the world, including in some of the traditional pillars of trade liberalization such as the United States and United Kingdom, reflect the growing fear, mistrust and hostility of many people in these countries and around the world regarding economic globalisation and international trade. While economic globalisation in general, and international trade in particular, undoubtedly offer the possibility of unprecedented prosperity for people in both developed and developing countries, they also cause numerous problems and give rise to justified concerns. The challenge facing the international community is to manage and regulate the economic globalisation and international trade so that they benefit all of humankind.

The World Trade Organization, established in 1995, is at the forefront of the multilateral effort to manage and regulate economic globalisation in general and international trade in particular. The law of the WTO governs the trade relations between the WTO’s 164 Members but also concerns each of us directly, as it affects the price and quality of the goods and services we consume. Moreover, for many of us, our (future) job will be, directly or indirectly, related to (and sometimes threatened by) international trade.

Since 2001, WTO Members have been negotiating in the context of the WTO Doha Development Round on rules for the further liberalisation of international trade. To the disappointment of many, years of negotiations so far have resulted in only limited agreements on new rules for international trade, achieved in Bali in December 2013 and in Nairobi in December 2015. However, the current WTO rules have played an important role in mitigating the consequences of the 2008-9 Global Financial and Economic Crisis. In the face of the dramatic drop in production and exports as well as high unemployment experienced by many countries during the 2008-9 crisis, it was feared that countries would resort to trade protectionist measures to support their domestic industries. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the adoption of such protectionist measures deepened and lengthened the economic crisis considerably, which in turn led to political upheaval and radicalization, international tension and, eventually, war. The WTO and its rules have contributed much to the fact that countries did not – in any significant manner – resort to protectionism in response to the Global Financial and Economic Crisis and that history did not repeat itself. However, continued vigilance is called for because high levels of unemployment persist in many countries leading to pressure on governments by domestic industries calling for protection from foreign competition. Moreover, most present-day protectionist measures no longer take the form of high tariffs or small quotas (both easy to detect) but instead hide in domestic regulation or domestic policy measures.

This introductory course on WTO law and policy is recommended to all students who want to gain a better understanding of the core institutional and substantive rules of the international trading system. This understanding will enable students to also appreciate some other recent developments in the field of international economic law, such as the proliferation of preferential trade agreements. The number and coverage of such agreements have been increasing in response to the failure of the Doha Development Round to reach multilateral consensus, thereby shifting trade negotiations partly away from the WTO. Depending on the political and economic position of the involved states, some of these agreements may well set new standards for future international trade regulation. By taking this course, students will gain understanding of not just the WTO but also of other recent developments in international economic relations.

The course is built around a number of true-to-life international trade problems represented in the form of case studies. The course addresses six themes. It starts by examining the phenomenon of economic globalization and, the arguments for and against free trade, as well as the role of law in international economic and trade relations. Secondly, the course looks at the history, objectives, structure, functions, decision-making and membership of the WTO. Thirdly, the WTO’s unique system for the resolution of trade disputes is discussed. Fourthly, the principles of non-discrimination in WTO law (namely the obligations of most-favoured-nation treatment and national treatment) are examined. Fifthly, the WTO rules on market access, dealing with tariff barriers and some non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and services are addressed. Finally, the provisions of WTO law that aim to balance trade liberalization with other societal values (such as health, environment and security) by means of exceptions to WTO obligations are discussed.