300465 World Politics: Knowing and Governing the World (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

The seminar provides an introduction to the growing research in International Relations on the production of knowledge that underpins and shapes global governance. It is structured into three parts: Part I discusses what knowledge practices are and how different theories conceptualise the effects of both knowledge and the lack of knowledge on world politics. Part II delves deeper into key processes and dynamics: the infrastructures that produce knowledge about global problems, the construction of governance objects and the competition over expertise and authority that takes place in world politics. Part III then explores several prominent modes of knowledge production – namely quantification, story-telling, modelling, simulations and anticipation – and the ways in which they shape the governance of policy fields such as security politics, climate politics, economic politics and development politics.