210039 SE BA 10: SE Global trends and global governance (engl.) (2009W)

Global Trends and Global Governance

held by: Dozent Dr Thomas Nowotny
( with back ground also in Austrian diplomacy and in work with I international organisations)

time: Tuesday from 4:45 pm to 6:15 pm ( punctual )
first meeting: October 13th, last meeting January 26th
At the first two meetings, next to dealing with administrative issues, the lecturer will provide a Power - Point assisted overview of the subject of the seminar. From the third event on, the presentation by students will be at the centre of the proceedings.

venue: lecture hall 2 at the Institute for Political Science, 2nd floor, Universitätsstrasse 7, 1010 Wien

language : English, Sufficient fluency in English is thus a pre - condition for a successful participation in the seminar ( papers may be written in German though if writing skills in English should not be sufficient ).

topics to be addressed: Economic growth and development, a rapid increase in the world's population, the lowering of transaction cost and the cost of transportation and communication have made for global interdependence. There still is insufficient appreciation of the unprecedented scope of this revolution. Frequently, the assessment of this development and of its consequences is being burdened and distorted by ideologies and emotions resulting in apocalyptic visions of an inevitable collapse on one hand, and on the other hand in an unapologetically optimistic view of the world in its present state being the best possible. There is insufficient appreciation too, of the mechanisms already in place to at least partly secure this interdependence by the tools of an evolving and complex "global governance".

methods: Students will be encouraged and led to use primary sources of data (mainly from official International Organisations and from INGOs; but also from empirical scientific research ) that document the long to medium term trends which have resulted in this complex interdependence; that have resulted in a dramatically increased and unevenly distributed global wealth; in new challenges and threats; and in new global "common goods" - and "common bads". Such findings will be assessed against their political implications and against the institutions and proceedings in place to deal with these issues.

Requirements: The seminar is conceived for students in the later part of their studies immediately before choosing a topic for their master's thesis. The maximum number of participants will be set at 30, so as to provide to each of the participants an opportunity to have an input, to present his or her findings, and to express her or his opinion. This is because a very interactive approach is being aimed at. In view of the limitation in the number of participants an early signing up for the seminar is being recommended.

Attendance is obligatory. At every third of the seminars, students will be asked to write a short ( one to two page ) resume of the main points made in the preceding three seminars. Each student will be required to also write a ( roughly 20 page ) paper on a topic that is being chosen by her or him in consultation with the lecturer. This paper will be subject to an oral presentation by that student that then will be discussed by the other participants. Where feasible, these oral presentation could and should be supported by the use of "Power - Point" projections or the use of an overhead projector.

The grading is being based on the quality of these oral presentations and of the quality of the seminar paper itself, as well as upon the quality of the above mentioned resumes; and on the general participation at the seminar.

Nor formal reading list will be issued. But at the first meeting on October 10th, the lecturer will provide a selected list of web- sites that can be used in the search for relevant data.