Nicholas Pang

This course is available on the MSc in Economy and Society, MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation, MSc in Inequalities and Social Science and MSc in Regulation. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

This course has a limited number of places. For information on how to apply for a place on this course, please see Courses offered and related information.

This course introduces students to sociological perspectives on economic and societal risks. Topics include the social theory of risk and uncertainty, and markets as risk-governing actors, scientific expertise and knowledge production, and transnational and systemic risks. The course will draw upon a broad international literature in economic sociology and the sociology of risk, as well as case studies from the environmental, financial, and public health domains.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

This course is usually delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars. There will be two hours or more of teaching each week in AT.

Presentation.

Abstract (1000 words).

Formative presentations will take place during classes.

• Beck, Ulrich. 1999. World Risk Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Calder, Ryan. 2024. The Paradox of Islamic Finance: How Shariah Scholars Reconcile Religion and Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 
• Douglas, Mary. 1990. “Risk as a Forensic Resource.” Daedalus 119(4): 1-16.
• Eyal, Gil. 2019. The Crisis of Expertise. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Foucault, Michel. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hacker, Jacob. 2019. The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Uncertainty and the Decline of the American Dream, Second Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• MacKenzie, Donald. 2011. “The Credit Crisis as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge.” American Journal of Sociology 116(6):1778-1841.
• Mojola, Sanyu. 2014.  Love Money and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
• Vaughan, Diane. 2016. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, Second Edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Quiz (10%) weekly.

Essay (90%, 4000 words) in January.

The weekly reading quizzes will be administered in class during Weeks 4-11 of Autumn Term (7 quizzes total). Quizzes can be run on Moodle or with pen and paper. Students will be given 10 minutes to answer 5-8 questions. Their summative mark will represent the average of their best 5 quizzes. The final essay will be a 4000-word prospectus due in January. It will outline a potential research project. It will (1) identify a case related to risk and governance; (2) discuss the phenomenon and justify its empirical relevance and theoretical importance; and (3) identify data sources and propose an analysis method. 

 Attendance at all seminars, completion of set readings and submission of set coursework is required.