Descriptif
Under the banner of "energy transition", energy-related stakes and issues stand high on the media and public policy agenda. But when it comes to the implementation of this transition,many debates and controversies arise. For instance, renewable energy production contributes toglobal challenges for the energy-climate issue, but can give rise to acute conflicts around local projects, which some researchers have characterized as "green on green" controversies (Warrenet al., 2005). More broadly, energy issues engage a wealth of different actors and sectors, far beyond the technical developments.
This seminar will enable students to consider energy issues with a sociological stance, resting on the contributions of Science and Technology Studies (STS), a branch of sociology and history devoted to the study of science and technology issues, as well as insights from opinion sociology and public policy analysis centred on energy issues.
Therefore, the seminar is at the same time an introduction to STS and to energy sociology. An introductory lecture will provide hints about how social science can deal with energy issues, situating strands of STS, public decision theory, and critically considering what public opinion theory can bring to understand the stakes of opinion polls on energy. The red thread of the seminar will then be the reading of a corpus of research articles in the sociology of science and technology, in a broad definition encompassing discourses, governance and imaginaries. This will lead these students with a technical background to reflect on the scientific and technologic development activity with a sociological point of view, on topics such as knowledge production, innovation, or decision-making methods concerning major technological projects. As lessons learnt from past transitions can provide valuable insights to consider the present and future in
an informed manner, these research articles rest on case studies in the energy sector, in several countries and time periods.
Following a usual teaching way in sociology, the course will be based on the reading of research articles. After the introductory lecture, each session will be devoted to two texts. Each of these texts will be presented by students, individually or by pairs, in a 20 minute frame. Then the presentation of the texts will be extended by the lecturer, in order to introduce a general discussion in the group. Non-presenting students are asked to read at least one of the two research articles prior to each seminar, and to be prepared to make at least one comment or remark (or ask a question) about it. Basing on articles in this corpus, analyses and discussions in the seminar will browse through diverse methods and strands of social science dealing with energy issues. The evaluation will be based on the students’ oral presentation of research articles in the corpus (60%) as well as a short essay resuming the main points of the presented text and engaging critically with it at the light of the reflexions and discussions conducted in the course, to be submitted at the latest on March 19th (40 %). Questions will be provided by the lecturer before each session to direct the readings and prepare the reflexion for the final essay.
effectifs minimal / maximal:
/32Diplôme(s) concerné(s)
- Energy Environment : Science Technology & Management
- Data Science for Business
- Economics, Data Analytics and Corporate Finance
- Internet of Things : Innovation and Management Program (IoT)
- Smart Cities and Urban Policy
- Ecotechnologies for Sustainability & Environment Management
- Cybersecurity : Threats & Defenses
- Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Visual Computing
Parcours de rattachement
Format des notes
Numérique sur 20Littérale/grade réduitPour les étudiants du diplôme Economics, Data Analytics and Corporate Finance
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Data Science for Business
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Cybersecurity : Threats & Defenses
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Smart Cities and Urban Policy
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Energy Environment : Science Technology & Management
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Ecotechnologies for Sustainability & Environment Management
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Internet of Things : Innovation and Management Program (IoT)
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Visual Computing
Le rattrapage est autorisé- Crédits ECTS acquis : 1.5 ECTS
Programme détaillé
Outline of sessions:1. January 8th
Energy issues and the social: scales, public opinion, transition, public policy analysis.
(Lecture)
Short preparatory reading : Miller, C. A., Iles, A., & Jones, C. F. (2013). The social dimensions of energy transitions. Science as Culture, 22(2), 135-148.
Innovations, energy transitions and STS conceptualisation
Transition – which are the drivers of socio-technical change in the energy field? how can we understand them? past energy transitions and future studies as the basis for STS analysis.
Session 2, January 15th
Hughes, T. (1979). The Electrification of America: The System Builders. Technology and Culture, 20(1), 124-161. doi:10.2307/3103115
Akrich, M. (1992). The De-Scription of Technical Objects in Bijker and Law (eds.) Shaping
Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change., or
Akrich, M., Callon, M., Latour, B., & Monaghan, A. (2002). The key to success in innovation
part I: the art of interessement. International journal of innovation management, 6(02),
187-206. (tbd)
Session 3, January 22nd
Geels, F. W. (2002). Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multilevel perspective and a case-study. Research policy, 31(8-9), 1257-1274.
Geels, F. W., Kern, F., Fuchs, G., Hinderer, N., Kungl, G., Mylan, J., ... & Wassermann, S. (2016).
The enactment of socio-technical transition pathways: a reformulated typology and a
comparative multi-level analysis of the German and UK low-carbon electricity transitions
(1990–2014). Research Policy, 45(4), 896-913.
Session 4, January 29th
Bakker, S., Van Lente, H., & Meeus, M. (2011). Arenas of expectations for hydrogen technologies.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 78(1), 152-162.
Joly, P. B. (2010). On the economics of techno-scientific promises. in Akrich, M., Barthe, Y.,
Muniesa, F., Mustar, P. (eds.) Débordements. Mélanges offerts à Michel Callon, Paris,
Presses des Mines, 203-222.
A sociology of public policies, debates and controversies around energy technologies and transitions
Session 5, February 5th Sociotechnical imaginaries and nuclear power
Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S. H. (2009). Containing the atom: Sociotechnical imaginaries and nuclear power in the United States and South Korea. Minerva, 47(2), 119-146.
Hecht, G. (2009; 1998), The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after WorldWar II, Cambridge. (chapter 2, “Technopolitical regimes”)
Session 6, February 12th Nuclear controversies and cross-border fallout
Tompkins, A. (2016). Grassroots Transnationalism(s): Franco-German Opposition to Nuclear
Energy in the 1970s. Contemporary European History, 25(1), 117-142.
doi:10.1017/S0960777315000508
Kalmbach, K., Bauer, S., & Kasperski, T. (2017). From Pripyat to Paris, from grassroots memories
to globalized knowledge production: the Politics of Chernobyl Fallout. In MacDowell, L.
(Ed) Nuclear Portraits: Communities, the Environment, and Public Policy. University of
Toronto Press.
Session 7, February 19th Nuclear governance and policy changes
Barthe, Y. (2009) ‘Framing nuclear waste as a political issue in France’, Journal of Risk Research,
12(7-8), 941-954
Müller, W. C. and Thurner, P. W. (Eds.) (2017) The Politics of Nuclear Energy in Western Europe,
Oxford University Press. (chapter tbd)
Session 8, March 5th Wind energy policies and “green on green” controversies
Karnøe, P., & Garud, R. (2012). Path creation: Co-creation of heterogeneous resources in the
emergence of the Danish wind turbine cluster. European Planning Studies, 20(5), 733-
752.
Wüstenhagen R, Wolsink M, Bürer MJ. (2007) Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation:
An introduction to the concept. Energy policy 2007, 35:2683-2691. doi:
10.1016/j.enpol.2006.12.001.
Session 9, March 12th A wrap-up on energy transitions
Miller, C. A., Richter, J., & O’Leary, J. (2015). Socio-energy systems design: a policy framework for
energy transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, 6, 29-40.
Jasanoff, S. (2018). Just transitions: A humble approach to global energy futures. Energy research
& social science, 35, 11-14.
