The Politics of Accountability

About

This course will cover core topics addressed by research on political and administrative accountability. It will first focus on accountability in the democratic state, exploring how both governments and bureaucracies are held accountable, and with what effect. In a second session the approach will “scale up” to survey the main accountability issues in the European Union and at the global governance level.

The sessions will take place in an interactive way and require from the participants to read in advance the material that will be discussed in class. Each session is divided in two subsessions with distinct reading material.
How do you forecast an emerging technology’s actual, rather than imagined, implications for international security? And how do we effectively communicate these conclusions to technologically-unversed decisionmakers so that they can craft a suitable response? Built around real-life case studies of "transformative" emerging technologies, this course will challenge students to develop an analytical framework for evaluating the true impact of any emerging technology on conflict, as well as communicate this work effectively with a policy audience. The class does not assume any prior direct experience in conflict technology research or technical expertise.

Course leader

Yannis Papadopoulos (Université de Lausanne)

Target group

The IBEI Summer School in Global Politics and Policy is a program designed for graduate students and all those who have an interest in advanced knowledge of international security, international development and global politics issues. The objective is to offer different short courses on significant topics, taught by scholars and experts of international prestige. The School will enable participants to broadly discuss current developments in world politics in the light of core social-science and IR theories and perspectives.
Optionally, students may ask for an assessment in order to be able to obtain ECTS credits, provided they are recognized by their university. The 2023 edition of the IBEI Summer School in Global Politics and Policy is taking place in face to face format.

Course aim

This course will cover core topics addressed by research on political and administrative accountability. It will first focus on accountability in the democratic state, exploring how both governments and bureaucracies are held accountable, and with what effect. In a second session the approach will “scale up” to survey the main accountability issues in the European Union and at the global governance level.

The sessions will take place in an interactive way and require from the participants to read in advance the material that will be discussed in class. Each session is divided in two subsessions with distinct reading material.
How do you forecast an emerging technology’s actual, rather than imagined, implications for international security? And how do we effectively communicate these conclusions to technologically-unversed decisionmakers so that they can craft a suitable response? Built around real-life case studies of "transformative" emerging technologies, this course will challenge students to develop an analytical framework for evaluating the true impact of any emerging technology on conflict, as well as communicate this work effectively with a policy audience. The class does not assume any prior direct experience in conflict technology research or technical expertise.

Fee info