In recent years, there has been an ongoing trend in STS to apply methods and concepts developed in the analysis of laboratory work, innovation and sociotechnical controversies to the political and legal domain. At the same time, important strands of political science have become increasingly aware of the cognitive, discursive and material dimension of policy making, the importance of expertise processes and the constitutive role of methods, instruments, and devices in political practice. Productive encounters between scholars currently engaging in such research trends need to be encouraged. This panel intends to explore a particular zone of potential convergence: the study of knowledge-making for and about reflexive social regulation, or “governance”. This includes representations or models of a reality of politics and therefore comprises the construction of basic ontologies of the political like the state, democracy, or theories of processes in political organization, government and public administration. Such models are background to the articulation of political action: policy instruments, templates of institutional design, procedures of public participation, methods and indicators of policy evaluation and learning are only some examples. Panel papers will discuss ongoing processes in: 1) the making and unmaking of representations of governance, i.e. the ways and patterns by which societies are reflexively regulated, as well as the relevance of these processes for shaping and governing the social. They will address 2) how knowledge about governance affects political processes, identities, antagonisms through the construction of political reality and under which circumstances such knowledge gets politicised and contested or accepted and naturalised. Finally, we welcome accounts on 3) the innovation trajectories of governance templates, policy instruments and methods, particularly focusing on their global circulation and transformation as they are inscribed, adapted and put to work in specific contexts. We particularly welcome papers with a focus on the global circulation of governance knowledge and technologies through south(s)/north(s) contexts.




Deadline for submissions: March 3, 2014.
To apply, submit an “individual abstract” via the 4S portal:  http://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ssss/4s14/.
Once you have a user name and password, go to "Submit proposal" > "Submit new proposal" > "Paper abstract".
After entering your details, check "Open Session #79: Making knowledge about governance..."
For more info visit: http://www.4sonline.org/meeting. http://www.4sonline.org/open_sessions