Kursinformation

Lehrinhalte
Students who have attended the seminar
·       are familiar with the notion of systemic resilience and with the causal mechanisms that are, from various social-scientific perspectives, supposed to enhance resilience, such as adaptation, redundance, innovation, and flexibility;
·       have an understanding of the ambivalent role that standards can play in resilience enhancing changes;
·       are able to analyze empirical cases of institutional change from a perspective of resilience enhancement
·       take a critical stance on the merits and perils of standard setting as a governance strategy in crisis management
 

Literatur
Introductory reading
 
Ansell, Christopher, Eva Sørensen & Jacob Torfing (2023): Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses. Public Administration, 101: 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12874
 
Beer, Felix & Stephan Rammler (2021): Zwischen den Zeitenwenden. In: politische ökologie 03-2021, Bd. 166: Resiliente Zukünfte. Mut zum Wandel. München: oekom Verlag, 17-24
 
Biggs, Reinette, Maja Schlüter & Michael L. Schoon (2015): An introduction to the resilience approach and principles to sustain ecosystem services in social-ecological systems. In: Reinette Biggs, Maja Schlüter & Michael L. Schoon (eds.): Principles for Building Resilience. Sustaining ecosystem services in social-ecological systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-31
 
Woods, David D. (2019): Essentials of resilience, revisited. In: Matthias Ruth & Stefan Goessling-Reisemann (eds.): Handbook on Resilience of Socio-Technical Systems. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 52-65

Erwartete Teilnehmerzahl
20

Offizielle Kursbeschreibung
In the face of multiple contemporary crises – from the ongoing global climate crisis to the recent pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – organisations in both the public and private sectors are under increased pressure to adapt to external conditions that threaten their existence. The term resilience is used in the social sciences to describe this flexible adaptability of single organisations or whole political and economic systems in dealing with crises-related challenges. Corresponding processes of change rely on the implementation of new standards of governance. This raises the fundamental question whether standards for uncertain, unpredictable futures can be clearly defined and meaningfully established in terms of the flexible adaptability that is required for systemic resilience. Standards of governance therefore play an ambivalent role. For example, sustainability is demanded and disseminated by the European Union as a governance standard to increase the resilience of societies. However, standardisation may propel sclerotic bureaucratisation and thus reduce flexibility as a necessary precondition for resilient adaptation. In the seminar, current debates from governance and resilience research in the social sciences will be explored regarding the role of governance standards in firms, government, and administration in promoting resilience. The overall aim is to conceptually grasp these interrelationships and areas of tension, to shed empirical light on them and to question them normatively.

Zusätzliche Informationen
The seminar is designed as part of the teaching programme of the DFG Research Training Group "Standards of Governance". It is organized jointly by Prof. Dr. Nathalie Behnke (TU Darmstadt) and Prof. Dr. Alexander Ebner (GU Frankfurt). In addition to the members of the Research Training Group, it is also open to a limited number of interested and qualified students from master’s programmes in political science and sociology at both universities. The course language is English. Introductory sessions take place alternatingly at seminar rooms at the Goethe University Frankfurt, the TU Darmstadt; presentations and discussions are combined in a retreat session of one and a half days at the end of the semester (please consider the schedule, as lessons are not organized on a weekly basis!).
 
The seminar is organized in two parts: In the first part of the course, basic theoretical and empirical perspectives on the topic are conveyed. To this end, various discourse contexts are opened through literature work: Concepts such as resilience, innovation, adaptation; the role of the state in resilience enhancement and the governance instruments available to it for this purpose.
Inthe second part of the course, those conceptual tools will be applied to empirical cases.Participants will work in groups to elaborate empirical examples of the relationship between standard-setting and resilience-building. Cases are selected from various policy and organisational fields. Results of those cases studies are tobe presented and discussed during the retreat session. Finally, the role of standards in increasing overall societal resilience will be critically discussed both from normative and positive perspectives: What is desirable and why – and what exists and what could be practically feasible?
 

Requirements and grading
Participants are expected to
·       regularly attend seminar sessions and actively contribute to them
·       prepare reading assignments
·       prepare a presentation in a group work and present it to the class
·       submit an individual term paper (date of submission: 31.03.2024; length: 5000 words (+/- 10%); the topic is to be selected from among the themes discussed during the seminar. It may be based on the presentation)
 

Online-Angebote
moodle