Understanding Sustainability Challenges. Insights and Perspectives from History and Political Science

Course goals

At the end of this course:
 

• Students understand and can recognize issues of environmental sustainability as wicked problems.
• Students have an understanding of the historical foundations of current environmental sustainability challenges viewed through various historical perspectives.
• Students understand the main political science theories and concepts used to analyze issues of environmental sustainability.
• Students understand important concepts regarding environmental sustainability that are used in history as well as political science, and can analyze the similarities and differences between the disciplinary perspectives, define a common ground, and take a perspective.
• Students understand important concepts regarding environmental sustainability that are used in history as well as political science, can analyze the similarities and differences between the disciplinary perspectives, and define a common ground.
• Students develop a more in-depth understanding of analyzing common ground and integrating insights.
• Students can judge the relevance of (PPE’s) interdisciplinary approach for understanding societal challenges.
• Students can analyze a contemporary issue of environmental sustainability by applying insights from history and political science.
• Students apply and develop basic skills in conducting and writing up academic research on an issue of environmental sustainability according to the standard of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary training offered in the program.
• Students can effectively communicate and defend their own research orally.
• Students can academically engage with and evaluate each other’s research.

 

Content

In this course, we address several challenges to environmental sustainability such as global warming due to CO2 emissions, air pollution and water contamination, or the decline in biodiversity.

This is an interdisciplinary course combining insights from history and political science. The course will start with an overview on what sustainability is and then discuss the historical roots of current day global sustainability issues. We will look at the socio-economic changes since the 19^th century and pay particular attention to historical drivers of power imbalances that today influence global environmental governance.

We will then examine the institutions which govern sustainability. We will look to the contemporary world, examining the formal and informal, public and private, institutions which preserve and undermine sustainability. We will examine institutional arrangements at several geographic levels: global/regional, national, and local.

We will introduce you to different concepts and theories that are highly relevant to sustainability issues and can be applied in both disciplines. At the end of the course, students will have a more detailed understanding about the complexity of sustainability issues, their historical origins, and governance challenges.

A central concept of this course, which connects to both disciplinary insights, is that of a wicked problem. Environmental problems are almost always wicked problems. These are problems that are complex and interconnected in nature and in which the causes and solutions are often disputed. To deal with this complexity through insights from history as well as political science is necessary to get a better understanding of the problems, its origins and potential solutions. This course will offer students integrated perspectives to better understand and analyse such wicked problems.

This course has priority rules and a waiting list.
 

Additional information

This course is only open to students from the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Law, Economics, and Governance.

This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you are: 

• a student in the BA PPE enrolled in the thematic package Global Pathways to a Sustainable Future.

In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.