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Instructors: Dr. Thomas Pieper
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Sociology, Politics & Economics
Displayed in timetable as:
Nachh.Konz.Prkt.Pol
Hours per week:
3
Credits:
6,0
Note: In your exam regulations, differing credits may have been specified.
Location:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Language of instruction:
German
Min. | Max. participants:
10 | 35
Priority scheme: Standard-Priorisierung
Course content:
Sustainable development is a theoretical concept. Hence, its operationalization, ‘application’, and empirical analysis are impossible without recourse to theory. Therefore, this seminar on Practice and Policy of Sustainable Development particularly focuses on questions how sustainability could be realised ‚in practice’ by looking at different theoretical accounts and empirical examples (for example: energy, food, mobility, consumption). This involves exploring actors seeking to make the world less unsustainable, established and emerging institutions of sustainable development as well as the conditions under which large-scale transformations could take place, when they could lead to sustainability, and whether and how such transformations could be governed. For a decade or so, thinking about how to make contemporary societies more sustainable has been strongly influenced by academic debates about socio-technical system transitions and transition management. Critical assessment of those discourses is, therefore, a good entry point into this large theme. In some instances, it seems even useful to look to other transformations beyond sustainability for better understanding the challenges, limitations, and possibilities.
Based on academic and policy-related readings, the students visiting this seminar will gain deeper understanding of central key concepts from social studies of sustainable development and in particular learn to critically scrutinise recent debates about socio-technical system transitions and transition management. We will continuously reflect on these concepts and even adjust their meanings in our weekly discussions. For this purpose, the seminar is devised as a mix of group discussions about common readings and regular phases of intensive group work in various settings and didactical formats.
In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on Universities to shift from focusing primarily on teaching and performing research, and to add an equivocal Third Mission (TM), labelled “a contribution to society”.
Students will learn to distinguish between different theoretical concepts and approaches required for studying social transformations and innovations relevant for sustainable development. They will be able to use them in different policy fields and social contexts. In particular, students will become competent in studying sustainable development as a societal project that aims for fundamental transformations in most dimensions of contemporary societies but is also immensely complex and open-ended. They become familiar with transferring relevant concepts from another transformation context to sustainable development and with analysing concrete (political, management, civil society) practices in relation to such a transformation. Methodologically, the students taking this class will learn to discuss complex academic texts in a critical manner, to relate them with broader academic debates and research agendas and to synthesise their main arguments.
Educational objective:
Students will learn to distinguish between different theoretical concepts and approaches required for studying social transformations and innovations relevant for sustainable development. They will be able to use them in different policy fields and social contexts. In particular, students will become competent in studying sustainable development as a societal project that aims for fundamental transformations in most dimensions of contemporary societies but is also immensely complex and open-ended. They become familiar with transferring relevant concepts from another transformation context to sustainable development and with analysing concrete (political, management, civil society) practices in relation to such a transformation. Methodologically, the students taking this class will learn to discuss complex academic texts in a critical manner, to relate them with broader academic debates and research agendas and to synthesise their main arguments.
Further information about the exams:
In the course of the seminar, various topics of sustainability are dealt with from different perspectives using social-ecological, political science and sustainability science approaches.
In the Spring Semester 2020, the students' examination performance took place within the framework of a multi-stakeholder dialogue. In the first step, students prepared position papers on a specific research area/sector in various stakeholder groups, which were then discussed in the second step within a panel of experts.
Topic of the multi-stakeholder dialogue in the Spring Semester 2020: "Systemic approach to increasing the energy self-sufficiency of the Lake Constance region through sustainable decentralised energy procurement by water supply companies".
Topic of the Multistakeholder Dialogue in the Spring Semester 2021: "Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union in the context of Climate Governance and Sustainable Policy of the EU COM".
Topic of the Multistakeholder Dialogue in the Spring Semester 2022: "Sustainability in Climate Policy and Adaptation Strategies (Social Dimension) in the Lake Constance Region - Approaches and Modes of Change".
This simulation game served in particular to be able to apply the knowledge acquired in the seminar and to postulate and argue in so-called expert hearings.
Modulbeschreibung:
Definition of sustainability, policy approaches and position of sustainability in the context of sustainability science.
Sustainability actors (cf. corporate sustainability management, corporate governance, environment analysis, i.e. socio-cultural, legal, interest-political, economic and scientific-technical environment).
Stakeholder management, ethics and CSR of companies, sustainability reporting, supply chain management, etc.
Social ecology in the context of the climate debate (cf. systemic approaches, resilience etc.).
Third mission - social responsibility of universities in the context of sustainability.
50 years ago, the book "The Limits to Growth" was published - commissioned by the "Club of Rome". Although it changed the world, it did not lead to a turnaround.
In 1987, the Brundtland Commission, also known as the World Commission on Environment and Development, published the report "Our Common Future", in which the concept of sustainable development was formulated and defined for the first time, thus providing the impetus for a worldwide discourse and public attention for the topic of sustainability.
How does the world community in politics, business, etc. take up these fundamental approaches - how does a "sustainable transformation" take place ?
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