96358 - APPLIED POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

Learning outcomes

The course introduces the student to the sociological-empirical analysis of societal phenomena, such as integration, acceleration, polarization, fragmentation and social action, such as conflict, protest, critique, social mobilization, and claims-making. The course introduces the students to a range of methodological approaches to the study of society/social actors in interaction with politics, law, and the economy. The course enhances the student's capacity and skills to analyze society, social actors, and social problems by using sociological and interdisciplinary instruments.

Course contents

1. Individual Competences, Sociology, and Artificial Intelligence (4 hrs)

The course will start with a timely discussion of (generative) Artificial Intelligence (AI) in relation to sociology and higher education. The discussion will focus on the potential advantages of using AI in higher education, but it will also engage with the challenges and major risks that stem from using AI in uncritical fashion. Specific attention will be paid to how AI may significantly reduce individuals’ skills in reasoning, critical thinking, categorising, summarising, conceptualising, explaining, and theorising. Further attention will be paid to collective challenges that AI creates for collectivities and societies in terms of the (massive) ecological footprint, forms of bias and discrimination, issues with intellectual property rights and structural plagiarism, and power differentials, not least related to the hegemony of big tech in controlling AI.

 

2. Introduction to Political Sociology (14 hrs)

The introduction of sociology and political sociology will discuss the sociological approach to studying political and related (e.g. legal) phenomena. A core intention is to problematize concepts and phenomena we tend to take for granted, including in relation to the following key theories and concepts:

• power, authority,
• political culture, legitimacy,
• the state,
• citizenship,
• societal integration and unity,
• conflict and polarization in society,
• societal acceleration,
• societal mobilization, actors, civil society, social movements, protest
•  

3. Political sociology, generative artificial intelligence, datafication, and data analysis (14 hrs)

Much of sociology, including political sociology, attempts to empirically (and critically) analyze social and political phenomena (such as those discussed in the first part) and engages with data-gathering as well as data analysis, forms of categorization, measurement and ranking of data. Data elaboration is frequently understood as a methodological matter but may be equally critically observed as a distinctive set of practices that may significantly shape the capacities of political sociology to make claims and come up with meaningful research results.

 

4. Observing sociological analysis in distinct case-studies (8 hrs)

a. Rule of law and democracy (2 hrs)

The rule of law is often considered in crisis, due to the rise of populist and authoritarian political forces, but also as a result of malgovernance (and the application of AI) more generally. A core way of addressing this crisis is to by means of monitoring the rule of law (on the basis of multi-dimensional indicators and measurements, such as in the Rule of Law index of the World Justice project). Quantitative technologies of measurement are evermore frequently used, but face a number of distinct problems, such as in-built bias, definitional problems, simplification, and reification.

b. Human rights, crime, and justice (2 hrs)

In the areas of international human rights and justice, evermore frequently digital technologies, AI, big data and open source investigation are being used to fight crime and injustice. Open source information opens possibilities of public participation in data gathering and analysis, and investigative journalism, but it also raises important questions for empirical sociology in terms of challenges to existing methods. The usage of digital means and bulk surveillance further create significant tensions with basic human rights, such as those to privacy, freedom of speech, and non-discrimination.

c. Market economy, the digital world (2 hrs)

Big data raises questions of who controls, owns, and has access to data infrastructures. A predominance of market actors, and specific countries such as the US and China, in controlling data and data systems may significantly forms of inequality, discrimination, and exclusion, while public monitoring and control might be largely absent. One example is the field of health, where on one hand the quality of care may be increasing and costs reduced, on the other social inequalities and access to health care may be declining.

d. Surveillance (2 hrs)

Surveillance is increasingly based on Big Data. ‘Big Data Surveillance’ is closely related to the Internet and forms a constitutive part of our social lives. Technologies of observation and detection are a vital part of governance today. Core questions are what are the social implications of Big Data Surveillance, what is its relation to human rights, and how can we critically assess the usage of Big Data as well as Artificial Intelligence in governance today? Also the question of central actors (governments, private companies, users/citizens) and their interaction forms a vital part of how to regulate surveillance.

Readings/Bibliography

Full range of texts in syllabus

Playfoot, D., Quigley, M., & Thomas, A. G. (2024). Hey ChatGPT, give me a title for a paper about degree apathy and student use of AI for assignment writing. The Internet and Higher Education, 62, 100950.

Boswell, J., & Corbett, J. (2021). Democracy, interpretation, and the “Problem” of conceptual ambiguity: Reflections on the V-Dem project’s struggles with operationalizing deliberative democracy. Polity, 53(2), 239-263.

Diaz-Bone, R., Horvath, K., & Cappel, V. (2020). Social research in times of big data. The challenges of new data worlds and the need for a sociology of social research. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 45(3), 314-341.

Janoski, T., de Leon, C., Misra, J., & Martin, I. W. (Eds.). (2020). The new handbook of political sociology. Cambridge University Press. Various chapters.

Mennicken, A., & Salais, R. (2022). The new politics of numbers: Utopia, evidence and democracy. Springer Nature. Excerpts.

Merry, S. E. (2016). The Seductions of Quantification. UChicago Press. Excerpts.

Outhwaite, W. and S.P. Turner (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology, SAGE. Various chapters.

 

 

Assessment methods

The examination consists in a midterm and a final exam.

NB. The course foresees active and frequent participation in classes. The submission of exams needs to observe a number of key principles. If these principles are not followed, an insufficient grade, and hence not passing the course, is highly probable. 

- The material needs to clearly discuss topics relevant to the course of Applied Political Sociology. It needs to become clear in the paper that at least 5 sources from the syllabus have been carefully studied and are well-understood by the student. Concepts/insights of these 5 sources have been applied in an in-depth in the paper.
- The usage of academic and other resources is done in an appropriate manner, meaning that the sources used are clearly relevant for the topic discussed.
- While the assistance of generative Artificial Intelligence is not forbidden, its usage needs to be explicitly indicated and recognized, while the student is responsible for any potential forms of plagiarism that might result from using AI.
- The paper needs to avoid any form of semblance with unmodified AI generated content. Hence, the following is not acceptable: short blurbs of texts without elaboration; failure to use up-to-date resources (this year/last year); usage of vague, tautological, superficial/convoluted statements. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that any potential semblance is avoided.

Further details on the midterm (podcast of 5 minutes) and final exams (written essay of min. 3000 words) are provided throughout the course. 

Office hours

See the website of Paulus Albertus Blokker