Otto Keck

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the painter of the same name, see Otto Keck (painter)

Otto Keck (* 1944 in Bodelshausen ) is a German political scientist . He is professor emeritus for international organization and international policy field research at the University of Potsdam .

Life

Otto Keck attended elementary school in Bodelshausen from 1950 to 1954 and then went to high school in Hechingen from 1954 to 1963 . He then studied Protestant theology (graduation in 1969), philosophy and economics . From 1963 to 1970 he studied at the Leibniz College of the University of Tübingen , and from 1972 to 1973 he continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg . From 1970 to 1971 he was a research assistant in the administration of the University of Heidelberg and from 1974 to 1980 a research assistant at the University of Ulm in the department for science research . He then studied from 1973 to 1977 at the Science Policy Research Unit of the University of Sussex in Great Britain , where he received his PhD in Philosophy. In 1990 he completed his habilitation in political science at the Free University of Berlin .

In 1981/1982 he was on the Kennedy Memory Fellowship at Harvard University , where he was also a Research Fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs of the John F. Kennedy School. He then received a post-doctoral fellowship from the German Research Foundation for the years 1981 to 1984. From 1982 to 1984 he was a visiting scholar at the International Institute for Comparative Social Research at the Berlin Science Center. From 1984 to 1990 he worked there as a research assistant for social research. He then stayed at the European University Institute in Florence until 1991 on the basis of the previously received Jean Monnet scholarship . From 1992 to 1994 he worked in the political science department at the Free University of Berlin. From 1994 to 1995 he represented the chair for international politics at the University of Potsdam. He then moved to Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences , where he was a professor of political science and worked from 1995 to 1999. He then went back to the University of Potsdam, where he had been Professor of International Organization and International Policy Field Research since 1999. In 2010 he retired.

Content information on important works

In his work The Fast Breeder - A Case Study of Decision-Making Processes in Large-Scale Technology , Keck deals with the problem of the political control of large-scale technologies using the example of the discussion about the construction of a nuclear reactor in Germany. Keck assumes that large-scale technology eludes social control because the company's control system itself is defective. Therefore society must recognize itself better what the task of social science is. It is even more important to him, however, that politics make itself knowledgeable so that it is no longer dependent on the opinion of economic institutions guided by self-interest. Bold beats here u. a. the expansion of policy field research and policy analysis . He would provide Parliament with a team of experts with conflicting interests. In addition, he found in his analysis that the deductible of companies in the respective project helps to determine their true attitude to the project, since with a full subsidy there is no longer the incentive to criticize.

His work Information, Power and Societal Rationality deals with the effect that institutional structures have on the political and economic process. Keck's basic thesis is that a major problem in understanding such institutions is the unequal distribution of information. This problem can be remedied through joint countermeasures. As an empirical example, he again analyzes nuclear energy policy in various countries.

In 1997 Otto Keck and Helga Haftendorn published the volume Cooperations Beyond Hegemony and Threat, Security Institutions in International Relations . It is the result of a research project by the Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy Unit at the Free University of Berlin and deals with the importance of security institutions in international politics at the time. Haftendorn and Keck deal in particular with the most important European-Atlantic institutions such as NATO, WEU, OSCE and EU and their adaptation to the new structures of the international system after the end of the East-West conflict . In addition, they deal with the participating states, the functions and the impact of the various institutions. The aim of this volume is to make a contribution to the further development of the theory of security institutions in order to provide possible suggestions for practical policy. In addition, the research results raise the question of what changes are required within the OSCE, NATO, WEU and EU / CFSP in order to ensure their survival in the future. Otto Keck contributed the texts The contribution of rational theoretical approaches to the analysis of security institutions and security institutions in the changing international system to this volume .

Fonts

• Otto Keck, Doris Janshen , Wolff-Dietrich Webler (eds.): Technical and social change: A challenge to the social sciences . Writings of the Berlin Science Center, Volume 27. Königstein / Ts. 1981.
• The fast breeder: a case study of decision-making processes in large-scale technology. Frankfurt am Main, New York 1984.
• Technology, politics and social rationality: A game theory approach with empirical applications using the example of nuclear energy policy. Habilitation thesis. Department of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, 1989/1990.
• Information, power and social rationality: the dilemma of rational communicative action, illustrated using the example of an international comparison of nuclear energy policy. Baden-Baden 1993.
• Otto Keck, Helga Haftendorn (ed.): Cooperation beyond hegemony and threat. Security institutions in international relations. Baden-Baden 1997.
• Articles in the journal for international relations .

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Keck in the catalog of the German National Library