Knowledge politics
The term knowledge politics has two meanings. Firstly, Nico Stehr defines knowledge politics as a new political field that is to a certain extent necessary because society is increasingly leading the discourse about the limits of science due to the consequences of (unchecked) scientific findings (e.g. embryonic stem cells, neurogenetics, etc.). Second, knowledge politics is increasingly used in analogy to Foucault's concept of biopolitics .
Knowledge politics as a political field
Knowledge politics is a political field that
- the aim is to sustainably enable and develop the competence of citizens and their communities for a successful, self-determined way of life,
- Takes measures that serve this goal - before other individual interests - and
- has people who have concrete responsibility for the implementation of the knowledge policy (this can also take place, for example, in a “knowledge partnership” of several participants).
Formally, in primary knowledge politics (it examines the question of which fundamental preliminary decisions about the relevance and tailoring of questions go into every production of knowledge. The questions are: who determines when? Where? Why? How? What researches, experiences, determines and it discusses what counts as certain knowledge, what is codified, published, passed on, politically used, operationally applied.) and secondary knowledge policy, including science policy (i.e. the institutional level), is distinguished.
Knowledge politics is therefore concerned with a. with the following questions
- How can the competence of the citizens and their communities for a successful, self-determined way of life be sustainably enabled and developed,
- what legal framework does the information society need (e.g. data protection laws, copyrights, etc.).
- How do knowledge competition and free knowledge exchange fit together? For example open source vs. "Protection of Intellectual Property Rights ".
- how can companies balance knowledge (see intellectual capital statement )?
- how can knowledge be used as a resource for international development cooperation? What global responsibility do we have, what knowledge rights do we demand for developing countries?
- what geopolitical position should a nation-state take with regard to knowledge?
- How can the newly emerging work models of knowledge workers (often so-called one-person companies (EPUs) / new self-employed persons, temporary project employees, etc.) be made attractive and efficient? Who represents their interests?
- How do we cushion the new social divide between the educated and the poorly educated? (Prevention of the knowledge divide )
Knowledge policy based on Michel Foucault
In contrast to the meaning content according to Stehr, knowledge politics does not describe policy fields in this second sense. Instead, the focus here is on discursive processes of truth production. Michel Foucault described such processes of truth production in the context of the term biopolitics as the influence of knowledge on life. In this process the subjects are arranged around the truth of the norms of knowledge production. The concept of knowledge politics transfers this concept to forms of knowledge that are not primarily related to life.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Nico Stehr, The Monitoring of Knowledge (Suhrkamp, 2003)
- ↑ Brandner, 2008 (PDF; 1.9 MB)
- ↑ sfs-dortmund: Primary knowledge policy. Concept and questions ( Memento from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Foucault, Michel (1999) lecture of March 17, 1976. In: In Defense of Society: Lectures at the Collège de France (1975 - 76). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 276–305.
- ^ Foucault, Michel (1977) The will to know. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 139.
- ↑ Keupp, Heiner and Schneider, Werner (2014) Individualization and Social Inequality: On the Legitimatory Practice of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Second Modern Age. In: Schneider, Werner and Kraus, Wolfgang (ed.) Individualization and the legitimation of social inequality in reflexive modernity. Opladen: Budrich, 193-217.