IDC520_SP14

Planning for Uncertainty and Risk
Prof. Cuz Potter
Graduate School of International Studies
Korea University
Spring 2014

1 Introduction

Every action and every decision incorporates risk and uncertainty. Thus, the formulation of plans, programs, and policies ideally anticipate and address risk and uncertainty. This course serves four primary purposes. First, it introduces and interrogates risk, uncertainty, and related concepts. Second, it conveys the basic quantitative techniques involved in cost-benefit analysis and risk analysis. Third, it compares and contrasts technocratic and democratic approaches to managing risk and uncertainty. Fourth, the course explores the ways in which risk shapes society and society in turn shapes risk. Concrete examples will be drawn from a variety of fields.

2 Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be knowledgeable on:

1. Basic quantitative and qualitative procedures for determining risk.
2. Various theoretical approaches to conceptualizing risk.
3. The central tenets and techniques involved in communicative planning/deliberative democracy.

3 Course Requirements

• Great consideration has been given to what readings are assigned. As such, you are expected to have completed all the readings assigned prior to our class meetings. Do not expect that you can complete the readings assigned in one night simply because there are only two chapters or a few articles to read. Most readings are dense and will take time to get through.
• A one-page Reaction Paper (RP) is due electronically by 9am WEDNESDAY morning each week for 9 out of the 13 weeks for which there are readings. This allows you to choose which weeks to write a reflection paper. The papers will not be graded with a letter grade, but will be allocated from zero to three points depending on how actively your paper engages the material. The paper should usually be 350–500 words (about one page single-spaced). These brief papers are intended to facilitate class discussion in seminar. You can use the Reaction Paper (RP) to ask for clarification about any aspect of the readings you did not fully understand and/or to express an opinion about one or more of the readings. In general, I would advise you to focus the RP on only one of the readings assigned for each week. RPs should be clearly written, spell-checked, and grammatically correct.
• One individual research paper addressing the definition of risk and the role of civil society in identifying, analyzing, and managing risk will be required. This paper must explicitly draw on the assigned readings and class discussions. The paper must be 1,500–2,500 words long (not including cover pages and bibliographies). Late papers will lose ten points (one letter grade) per day.
• There will no examinations.

4 Grading

5 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is unacceptable. If plagiarism is detected, you will receive a zero for the given assignment. Please note that plagiarism is much broader than many students realize. You are encouraged to look at the excellent descriptions of plagiarism from Indiana University (http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml), Harvard University (http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342054), and the University of Wisconsin (http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QuotingSources.html), and you will be held to their standards.

6 Required texts

The following books will be used extensively and you might consider buying complete copies of them. All books will be available through Kyobo Books or 공문화사 wither as complete books or compiled into a reader. They will also be on reserve at the central library (in both Korean and English if available).

• Ulrich Beck. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Sage Publications Ltd., Thousand Oaks, 1992.
• Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983.
• John S. Dryzek. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990.
• Frank Fischer. Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2000.
• Charles Yoe. Primer on Risk Analysis: Decision Making under Uncertainty. CRC Press, New York, 2012.

All other materials will be available electronically through the class website.

You may also want to get a copy of the following book, which I have used to structure much of the first half of the course.

• Deborah Lupton. Risk. Key Ideas. Routledge, New York, 1999.

7 Schedule of Topics and Reading

Module 1: Technical approaches to risk and uncertainty

Week 1 (March 5): Introduction

1. Yoe, chapter 1.

Week 2 (March 12): Uncertainty/Introduction to CBA

1. Yoe, chapter 2.

Week 3 (March 19): Risk management

1. Yoe, chapter 3.

Week 4 (March 26): Risk assessment

1. Yoe, chapter 4.

Module 2: Culture and risk

Week 5 (April 2): Culture and risk I

1. Douglas and Wildavsky, introduction and chapters 1–5.

Week 6 (April 9): Culture and risk II

1. Douglas and Wildavsky, chapters 6–end.

Module 3: Further interrogating the technical approach

Week 7 (April 16): Rationality and capitalism

1. Steven Lukes, editor. Power. Readings in Social and Political Theory. New York University Press, New York, 1986, chapter 2.
2. Herbert Marcuse. Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, chapter Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber, pages 151–170. May Fly Books, London, 2009. First published by Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1968.

Week 8 (April 23): No class. (Essay 2 due.)

Week 9 (April 30): Technology as ideology

1. Jürgen Habermas. Toward a rational society: Student protest, science, and politics, chapter Technology and Science as “Ideology”, pages 81–122. Beacon Press, Boston, 1970.

Module 4: The risk society

Week 10 (May 7): Risk society

1. Beck, preface and part 1.

Week 11 (May 14): Modernity

1. Anthony Giddens. The consequences of modernity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 1990, chapters 1 and 3.

Module 5: Governmentality and risk

Week 12 (May 21): Governmentality

1. Michel Foucault. Governmentality. In Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, editors, The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, pages 87–104. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.
2. François Ewald. Insurance and risk. In Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, editors, The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, pages 197–210. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.

Module 6: Deliberative democracy and citizen participation

Week 13 (May 28): Discursive democracy

1. John S. Dryzek. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990, chapters 1–3.

Week 14 (June 4): Citizens and experts in the risk society

1. Frank Fischer. Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2000, chapters 1–4.

Week 15 (June 11): Risk communication

1. Yoe, chapter 5.
2. John S. Dryzek. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990, chapters 4.

Week 16 (June 18): No class. (Essay 2 due.)