Citizenship and Risk Governance

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

The sesssions start with a brief exposition by the teacher, situating the discussion of each thematic, followed by the presentation by students of the assigned texts for the specific session. Each student must present at least one text. The final essay or synthesis work allows students to incorporate the thematic discussed in the curricular unit, articulating them with their own academic interests and PhD projects.

Learning Outcomes

Objectives:
to train students to apply a critical approach to the analysis of precaution, prevention and risk regulation regimes, with special attention to the articulation between supra-national, national and local institutions. They should also be able to evaluate participation practices related to risk governance public policies.

Therefore, students must:
a) acquire the ability to identify precaution, prevention and risk regulation regimes and their relationship to risk governance;
b) identify the role of disasters and catastrophes in the redefinition of citizenship rights;
c) to understand mobilization and public participation logics and the limits of traditional notions of citizenship;
d) acquire analytical and intervention tools, including juridical ones, to delineate integrated programs for population and environment structural safety.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

- Risk regulation regimes

- Risk governance and citizenship

- Uncertainty politics: from biopolitics to vital systems security

- The new uncertainty scenarios and the imperative of vital systems security and of infrastructures security

- Preparedness vs prevention/precaution.

- Vulnerability maps and enactment of potential future disasters/catastrophes

- The politicization of new uncertainties: the case of environmental problems and sanitary emergencies

- Law and risk governance: critical evaluation of legal concepts related to risks (risk, hazard, hazardness, acute damage, quasi accident, unusual event, domino effect); Discussion of the contents, principles and limits of juridical notions applied to risk magement, mainly related to territorial risks: principle of high level of protection, prevention principle and precaution principle.

Head Lecturer(s)

José Manuel Oliveira Mendes

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Presentation of texts in class and participation in debates: 25.0%
Synthesis work: 75.0%

Bibliography

Aven,Terje; Renn, Ortwin (2010),Risk Management and Governance.Concepts,Guidelines and Applications. Berlin: Springer
Becerra,Sylvia;Peltier, Anne(dir) (2009),Risques et environnement:rechercehs interdisciplinaires sur la vulnérabilité des sociétés.Paris:L'Harmattan
Collier,Stephen J.;Lakoff, Andrew (2009),On Vital Systems Security. New School:International Affairs Working Paper 01
Lavieille,Jean-Marc; Bétaille,Julien; Prieur, Michel (dir) (2010),Les catastrophes écologiques et le droit:échecs du droit, appels au droit. Bruxeles: Bruylant
Mendes, José Manuel (2009),“Social vulnerability indexes as planning tools: beyond the preparedness paradigm”, Journal of Risk Research, 12:1, 43-58
Rosa, Eugene; Renn, Ortwin; McCright, Aaron (2014),The Risk Society Revisited. Social Theory and Governance.Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Sommers,Margaret(2008),Genealogies of Citizenship:Markets,Statelessness, and the Right To Have Rights.New York:Cambridge University Press.