IPW Lecture with Nikolas Rose

On 11. December 2019 Nikolas Rose gave his IPW Lecture on the topic "The politics of psychiatry today and tomorrow: Is another psychiatric biopolitics possible?".

Abstract

Psychiatry, since it took its modern form in the mid-nineteenth century, has always been a ‘political’  science - historically in relation to degeneracy and eugenics, mental hygiene, and the management of ‘dangerous individuals’ in the court and psychiatric system’;  today in relation to the ‘economic burden’ of mental ill health, the Global Mental Health Movement seeking to expand Euro-America psychiatry to the Global South, the challenges of mental disorder refugees, migrants and children in the Global North and so forth.   While much focus has been on the emergence of new ‘neurobiological’ styles of thought in psychiatric research, there are signs that a new psychiatric strategy is taking shape. This new biopolitics of psychiatry would focus less on treatment in the clinic, and more on the integration of psychiatry into the domain of public health.  In this talk I will consider the possibilities that psychiatry could become a branch of social medicine, identifying and addressing the forms of social adversity that give rise to mental distress, understanding the pathways by which they act, and transforming the power relations that have always characterised this form of expert knowledge. I will suggest that we are at a potential turning point and outline the possibilities for a new, different and politically progressive psychiatric biopolitics.

The lecture was organised by the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity (CeSCoS).

 IPW Lecture with Mark Flear

On 20. November 2019 Mark Flear held his IPW Lecture on the topic "Constructing Failure: A Tool for Participation by the Subjects of Health Research?".

Abstract:

Here, I argue that the process of constructing failure can be used by the subjects of actual or potential failure as a tool to demand and contest decision-making. I do so by referencing examples drawn from health research. I aim to illuminate how the construction of failure occurs within a risk-based framing, underpinned by bioethics and scientific-technical knowledge. I explain that this framing marginalises the embodied and experiential knowledges – key aspects of the social – that the subjects could contribute towards decision-making. By bringing together and synthesising insights from critical theory, law, bioethics, regulatory studies, anthropology and science and technology studies, I provide a new perspective on failure. From this viewpoint I show how the epistemic lacunae and blindspots in the process of constructing failure create space for participation in regulation by the actual or potential subjects of failure. Such participation holds out the promise of widening the knowledge base for decision-making, and from there responsibilities and accountabilities, so as to improve the efficacy and legitimacy of the health research enterprise.

The lecture was organised by the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity (CeSCoS).

 IPW Lecture with Carlo Knotz

On 4. June 2019 Carlo Knotz held his IPW Lecture on the topic "The Politics and Sociology of ‘Getting Tough on Unemployment’: New Data and Insights".

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Abstract:

Over the last decades there has been a pronounced trend toward tighter benefit conditionality across the advanced democracies, in particular in the case of benefits for the unemployed. Until recently, however, the very limited availability of systematic cross-country data on the conditionality of social protection benefits has posed a serious constraint to research into the political drivers behind this trend and the effects of these policies. A new comparative database on the strictness of unemployment benefit conditions and sanctions in 21 advanced democracies since the 1980s now allows researchers to move past this constraint. In his talk, Carlo will present this new database, novel findings based on this database, and still open questions that this database can help answering.

 IPW Lecture with Hanna Kienzler

On 05.06.2019 Hanna Kienzler held an IPW Lecture on the topic "The Politics of Mental Health System Reform in Contexts of Humanitarian Emergencies. Toward a Theory of 'Practice-Based Evidence".

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Abstract:

Humanitarian emergencies such as armed conflicts are increasingly perceived as opportunities to improve mental health systems in fragile states. Research has been conducted into what building blocks are required to reform mental health systems in states emerging from wars and into the barriers to reform. What is less well known is what work and activities are actually performed when mental health systems in war-affected resource-poor countries are reformed. Questions that remain unanswered are: What is it that international humanitarian aid workers and local experts do on the ground? What are the actual activities they perform in order to enable and sustain system reform? This talk begins to answer these questions through ethnographic case studies of mental health system reform in Kosovo and Palestine. Based on the findings, a theory of “practice-based evidence” is developed. Practice-based evidence assumes that knowledge is derived from practice, rather than the other way around where practice is believed to be informed by systematic evidence. It is argued that a focus on practice rather than evidence can improve system reform processes as well as the provision of mental health care in a way that is sensitive to local contexts, structural realities, culture, and history.

 IPW Lecture with Béla Greskovits

On 17.01.2019 Béla Greskovits held an IPW Lecture on the topic "Civic Activism, Economic Nationalism, and Welfare for the Better-Off: Pillars of Hungary’s Illiberal State".

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Abstract of the lecture:
Explaining the remarkable political success of Premier Viktor Orbán’s illiberal state, the presentation makes two arguments. First, this success is traced to the Hungarian right’s superior embeddedness in civil society. Founded by Orbán in 2002, the Civic Circles Movement mobilized all fractions of the right to catch up in terms of contentious and non-contentious civic activism with the left and liberals. After eight years in opposition, the accumulated social capital turned into political capital leading to a landslide victory of the Fidesz party at the 2010 elections, and helping the consolidation of illiberal rule ever since. Second, after 2010, the resilience of Fidesz in power is also supported by its hybrid strategy of mobilizing consent of the „haves” internally, and satisfying veto-players externally. This strategy combines noisy rhetorics and policies of change with quiet policies of continuity. It rebalances cautious economic nationalism and neoliberalism; welfare protection for the „haves” and workfare for the „have-nots”; and buys time for enduring political dominance at present at the price of erosion of competititve advantages in future.

 IPW Lecture with Flavia Fossati

On 22.10.2018 Flavia Fossati held an IPW Lecture on the topic "Labour market integration of immigrants: The employers‘ perspective".

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Abstract of the lecture:
Labour market integration is one of the most promising ways to integrating immigrants into a host society. However, there are different reasons why immigrants have a harder time obtaining a job. Beyond human and social capital issues (e.g. certificate recognition, language skills, etc.) sometimes also employers’ discriminatory behaviour hinders a successful labour market integration. This presentation explores when and why employers discriminate immigrants, and asks whether there are individual characteristics of immigrants (e.g. hobbies, volunteering activities, etc.) and/or policies (e.g. active labour market program participation) that can help mitigating the disadvantages immigrants face on the labour market.

 IPW Lecture with Mette Nordahl Svendsen

On 05.10.2018  Mette Nordahl Svendsen held an IPW Lecture on the topic "Humans, Pigs, and Genomes at the Borders: How the Danish Welfare State Metabolizes Life".

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Abstract of the lecture:
In this talk, I track policies and public discussions in relation to the border crossings of humans, pigs, and genomes in and out of Denmark. By bringing together these diverse forms of life, I aim to think anew about who or what may cross the physical and electronic borders of Denmark. Regulating the flow of bodies and genomes to enter this collectivity has been the center of gravity in welfare state life politics and central to building up the Danish welfare state, itself, from eugenics, through breeding of livestock—especially pigs—to prenatal diagnostics, and genomic and migration policies. In scrutinizing how the welfare collectivity gains its shape from what enters, is rejected, or becomes connected and transformed in the welfare state, I introduce the concept of the welfare state metabolism. I ask how this metabolism works, how it regulates what can go in and out Denmark, and how various forms of life—humans, pigs, genomes—are transformed to life-sustaining fuel for the collectivity. I show how these figures are metabolized in ways that are not only parallel but also intersect. Borders and border crossings reveal themselves as being at the center of the welfare collectivity.

 IPW Lecture mit Hendrik Wagenaar

On the 16.05.2018 Hendrik Wagenaar held an IPW Lecture on the topic "The Emergence of Civic Enterprise: Bottom-Up Social Innovation and the Possibilities for Democratic Renewal in the Administrative State".

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Abstract of the lecture:
Over the last two decades Civic Enterprises (CEs) have emerged in virtually every European country addressing a wide range of social needs, such as work integration, child care, adult care, urban renewal, community development, social welfare delivery, and sustainable energy. Civic enterprises may become sites of innovation and experimentation with new forms of organisation, financing and governance. Based on fieldwork in the Netherlands, I describe how citizens navigate the political-administrative environment in which their civic enterprise operates and how they position themselves within and against that environment. In the second part of my presentation I address the key question to what extent these bottom-up citizen initiatives are able to scale up to more enduring, institutionalized democratic innovation. Alternatively I interpret them as a form of social innovation, as a counter-institution within a radical democratic framework, and as hybrid forms of governance within a culture of administrative democratisation.