IKD: Innovation, Knowledge and Development
Seminar Series
Winter - Spring 2010/2011
Upcoming seminars
For information on seminars and/or to join mailing list, contact the IKD Research Centre co-ordinator, ikd-enquiries@open.ac.uk.
Workshops, lectures and conferences
Read about forthcoming IKD workshops, lectures and conferences
Past seminars
23 June 2011: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Julius Mugwagwa, Ann Kingiri, Watu Wamae and Lois Muraguri (Open University)
'Understanding policy trajectories for emerging technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa: The policy kinetics model.'
We embarked on a study to understand the factors that influence the duration and pace of policy making processes and the effect these have on policy outputs. Looking at four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe, the study examined policy making in the area of agricultural biotechnology, with a particular focus on development of biosafety frameworks in the four countries. Among others, the study explored the separate and overlapping roles of government and non-governmental actors in the emergence of regulatory frameworks. The role of the over-arching national and international contexts was also explored.
One image that quickly comes to mind when one reflects on policy processes in a number of economic sectors in Africa, and as confirmed by this study is that the processes are lengthy and often characterised by many fluctuations with regard to the processes to follow and the desired outputs. In looking at the area of biosafety in the four countries, we sought to understand exactly how long the 'long' processes were, whether being long was an exception or a rule. We also sought to identify and understand the underlying causes of these long trajectories. The process and results of the study inspired us to advocate for a 'policy kinetics' approach to understanding these policy trajectories.
Borrowing from chemical kinetics also called reaction kinetics in chemistry, which is the study of rates of chemical processes, our argument for a policy kinetics approach to understanding policy processes recognises their complexity and also that within this complexity the processes can be broken down into reactants, processes, catalysts and outputs, which all interact at various levels in space and time. The policy kinetics approach proposes a comprehensive approach to analysis and understanding of the duration, direction and pace of policy processes, through understanding how the various pieces interact within the arena to facilitate or constrain attainment of desired outcomes. We also bring attention to the presence of various intermediate outcomes of processes, and the potential that these have to facilitate or constrain the process, including bringing a shift to the direction, duration and pace of the overall process. The presence or potential emergence of components that mimic what would catalyse the process is another area that this approach brings to the attention of policy actors.
25 May 2011: Seminar
Clive Gabay (Queen Mary University, London)
'Solidarity, Legitimacy: An exploration of the largest civil society alliance in the world'
4 May 2011: Seminar
Theo Papaioannou & Les Levidow (Open University)
'Knowledge-based Bio-economy'
20 April 2011: Seminar
Rafael Kaplinsky (Open University)
'Making the Most of Commodities in SSA'
6 April 2011: Seminar
Dinar Kale (Open University)
'Sources of Innovation and Technological Capability Development in the Indian Auto Industry'
23 March 2011: Seminar
Julius Mugwawa (Open University)
'To Harmonise or not to Harmonise? The Case of Bio-safety and Medicines Control in Sub-Saharan Africa'
9 March 2011: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Michael Young Building, Ground Floor, Presentation Room
Robert Jessop (Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Co-Director, Cultural Political Research Centre, Lancaster University)
'Finance-Dominated Accumulation, the Knowledge-Based Economy, and the Green New Deal: a Cultural Political Economy of Crisis-Management'
This seminar presents some preliminary results from my current research project on contested interpretations of the global financial crisis and its repercussions, noting how some meanings are selected as the basis for policy-making, and some of these policies are defined as successful, entrenching them until events indicate otherwise. It is particularly concerned with how the knowledge-based economy as an economic imaginary became hegemonic in the wake of the crisis of Fordism, was displaced by finance-dominated accumulation, has re-emerged after the financial crisis, and is now articulated with the Green New Deal (in various guises) as a potentially new hegemonic economic imaginary. It is nonetheless being inflected in a neo-liberal direction by its articulation to carbon trading, securitization, and other financial measures.
2 March 2011: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Michael Young Building, Ground Floor, Presentation Room
Rajiv Prabhakar (Lecturer in Personal Finance, Open University)
'Are the public more opposed to inheritance taxes than other taxes?'
Inheritance taxes are often assumed to be very unpopular among the public. However, are the public more opposed to inheritance tax than other taxes? Most taxes can be thought of as provoking disquiet and one question is whether there is something special about public attitudes to inheritance tax. This question is important for ensuring that policy is not built on a misunderstanding of public opinion. This paper presents findings from some focus groups into public attitudes in England on this issue.
2 February 2011: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building
Tim Jacoby (University of Manchester)
'Freedom of Expression, Kurdish Political Representation and Constitutional Reform in Turkey'
19 January 2011: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building
Stephen D Biggs (School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia)
'Diverse Patterns of Rural Mechanization'
8 December 2010: Seminar from 12:30 (Lunch from 12:00)
Neil Stammers (University of Sussex)
'Creating Social Change: The Role of Movement Struggles for Human Rights'
3 November 2010: Seminar from 13:00 (Lunch available from 12:30)
Teddy Brett (Professor at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science)
'Liberal Pluralism and Uneven Development: Problematising the Post-Washington Consensus'
Teddy Brett, Visiting Professor at the Department of International Development at the LSE and author of Reconstructing Development Theory (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), will address these and other issues at an IKD Seminar at 1pm in the Open University Campus.
28 October 2010: Seminar from 13:00 (Lunch and Refreshments available from 12:30)
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building, The Open University, Walton Hall
Myles Wickestead CBE (Professor of International Relations at The Open University)
'Still Our Common Interest'?
That is the title of the new Commission for Africa Report, launched in September 2010, which tracks the progress of the Recommendations in the 2005 Report which formed the basis for the Communique on Africa at the Gleneagles Summit.
What does it say? Is Africa making progress or moving in the wrong direction - and how is it shaping up in terms of the Millennium Development Goals? How complex was a process originally associated very closely with a previous Labour Government which produced a Report a few months into the life of a new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government in the UK?
Myles Wickstead CBE, Visiting Professor of International Relations at The Open University, will address these and other issues at a DPP Seminar at 13:00 in The Open University Campus.
5 May 2010: Seminar from 13:00 (lunch available from 12:30)
Kristin Sandberg (University of Oslo)
International Institutions and Regimes on Health: lessons from the evolution and performance of the climate change review
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building
The global system for bringing new health technology to target populations is a realm where innovation feeds into the larger agendas of global health and societal development - an interface between innovators, market and public policy. However, in a time with growing capabilities to innovate and manufacture new and improved technology, their continued underutilisation in countries with the highest disease mortality appears a paradox. Experience over the past decade has taught that market failures were not the only problem, prompting further questions: Do we have the right institutions, or structures for cooperation, to bridge the innovation/access gap? What questions should researchers ask? Can we arrive at an assessment of which institutional tools will work best?
This seminar takes as a starting point a PhD study of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (now known as the GAVI Alliance). The study viewed the field of medicine from a political science and international relations perspective, and adopted theories and methodology from studies on the formation and implementation of the international climate regime. The methodology is an institutionalist approach, known as regime studies, focusing on the relations between actors. The approach asks how initiatives can succeed within the ‘boundaries’ within which they operate, seeking to build an empirically based understanding of governance and complexity.
The presentation will dwell on a comparison of global health and climate change as two distinct issue areas, considering parameters such as country participation and patterns of technology innovation and transfers. The presentation aims to open a discussion about the meeting points of science and technology studies with international relations, seen in the light of recent years’ developments in international institutions on health innovation, considering both biotech capabilities and geopolitical factors.
14 April 2010: Seminar from 13:00 (lunch available from 12:30)
Luke Martell (University of Sussex)
Globalisation, cosmopolitanism, and progressive responses
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building
Luke Martell looks at global cosmopolitan politics as a solution to political problems such as climate change, global inequality, financial crisis and nuclear proliferation.
He argues that cosmopolitanism should be seen at different levels. Cosmopolitanism is defended as a social and political philosophy. But it is argued that cosmopolitan aims and solving global problems may not be best achieved through cosmopolitan forms of politics. In fact this route may set back cosmopolitanism. This is because of problems at economic, social, cultural and political levels. Normative cosmopolitanism needs to be embedded in socio-economic analysis. The dangers of cosmopolitanism as a discourse become evident in such a context.
The critique of his paper is not negative. It looks for positive paths for achieving cosmopolitan goals. It distinguishes between utopian and materialist approaches to pursuing cosmopolitan aims whilst addressing problems faced by its means. It argues that global politics should take into account inequality and power as well as commonality, and be based on conflict as much as consensus. It argues that the experience of the financial crisis and Copenhagen show that solutions to global problems need to operate at national and above-national but below-global levels, and through bottom-up as much as top-down solutions of global governance.
10 March 2010: Seminar from 13:00 (lunch available from 12:30)
Andrew Mold (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
Policy Ownership and Aid Conditionality in the Light of the Financial Crisis
Room 00-13, Ground Floor, Chambers Building
Archive
Archive of IKD Seminar Series: