OADD 2380 - Deep-time Politics: Intergenerational and Planetary Responsibilities

How do we make decisions today that will affect people who don't yet exist, in places we may never see, across timescales that exceed any human institution? This course takes that question seriously, not as an abstract philosophical puzzle but as a concrete governance challenge that societies are already grappling with, imperfectly and often inequitably.

We examine how political, legal, and technical arrangements are formulated to connect the present to distant futures: who gets to define the problem, which collectives, situated in time and space, bear the costs, which materials and infrastructures are involved, and what happens when those arrangements keep producing new configurations their designers had not anticipated. Nuclear waste serves as an empirical entry point throughout the course, because it makes these challenges unusually visible: here is a domain where arrangements have been formulated to last a million years, where the question of which communities bear the consequences is explicitly contested, and where the gap between what was promised and what is being delivered is documented in extraordinary detail. But the analytical tools we develop apply across domains, from biodiversity governance to climate policy to the governance of commons.

Students will leave the course equipped to analyze long-term governance challenges across multiple dimensions: material, institutional, ethical, and political. They will work collaboratively on empirical cases, developing policy briefs that grapple seriously with what governance across time requires.

Learning Outcomes

Through readings, discussions, and applied projects, this course will challenge students to reconsider how governance arrangements are formulated to connect the present to distant futures, and what it means when those arrangements come undone. The course will give students the capacity to:

• Analyze how political, legal, financial, material, and scientific arrangements are formulated to hold together temporally and spatially defined collectives, and what those arrangements produce beyond their designers' intentions.
• Apply interdisciplinary frameworks, drawing on science and technology studies, political science, discard studies, anthropology and sociology, to examine how institutions, communities, and governance systems engage with challenges that extend beyond human timescales.
• Examine how spatial relations, place-based identities, and material infrastructures shape which collectives bear the costs of long-term governance arrangements and which do not.
• Engage critically with the ethical and political stakes of governing across generations, including questions of responsibility, accountability, and distributional justice across time and space.
• Develop and communicate original policy analyses that integrate theoretical frameworks with empirical cases of long-term governance.

Professional Skills

• Designing original projects that contribute to understandings of the temporal dimensions of contemporary politics
• Communicating complex environmental issues that span multiple temporal and spatial scales to diverse audiences
• Engaging with debates in intergenerational ethics as informed citizens, future experts, and policymakers
• Collaborative research, group facilitation, and policy brief drafting
• Controversy mapping as a method to explore policy debates.

Being curious, engaged, and interested in critically reflecting on contemporary societies’ efforts to establish ‘good’ and ‘desirable’ relations between the present and far futures.

The course follows an inverted classroom approach, blending theoretical and methodological exploration with applied policy development. Each weekly session is divided into two complementary components: the first hour focuses on critical discussion of assigned readings that introduce key theoretical and methodological frameworks; the second hour involves collaborative group work where students progressively develop policy briefs addressing real-world cases of long-term governance challenges.

Throughout the semester, student groups select and analyze specific cases (such as nuclear waste management, biodiversity conservation, or commons governance) through different temporal lenses, gradually building components of their policy briefs (maximum length: 4,000 words) that integrate the week's theoretical and methodological reflections.

Reading discussions will receive oral feedback during class discussions. Group checkpoint submissions will receive written feedback to guide policy brief development. The final policy brief will receive detailed written feedback.

I reserve the right to modify readings and assignments with at least one week's advance notice to better align materials with the evolving interests and needs of the class.

• Weekly Reading Discussions 25%

All students are required to participate actively in the weekly reading discussions. This involves completing the assigned readings in advance, contributing thoughtful comments and questions, and engaging critically with both the texts and their peers' contributions. Discussion is assessed on the quality and consistency of engagement throughout the term, not merely attendance. The following indicative criteria apply:

• Excellent: consistent, substantive contributions that demonstrate close engagement with the readings, advance the collective discussion, and respond constructively to peers.
• Good: regular contributions that show familiarity with the readings and engage meaningfully with the discussion.
• Adequate: occasional contributions that demonstrate basic preparation but limited engagement with peers or with the depth of the readings.
• Weak: minimal or no contributions, or contributions that suggest the readings have not been completed.
• In-class Simulation of Two Empirical Cases (25%, 12.5% each)

Group performance is assessed on three dimensions: 1) the depth of preparation as demonstrated in the position statement and in-role argumentation, 2) the analytical use of course concepts to frame the group's interests and challenge other parties, and 3) the group's capacity to engage constructively with competing positions without abandoning its stakeholder's commitments. Oral feedback is given in the debrief; brief written feedback follows within one week.

• Collaborative Research Project 50%

Small group projects aimed at developing a governance approach to address a long-term challenge will lead to the production of a policy brief based on the controversy mapping method (maximum length: 4,000 words). The final policy brief is to be submitted by December 15 at midnight (Paris time).

To progress towards completion of the policy brief, groups will submit two checkpoints:

Checkpoint 1 (before Week 4): A two-page case overview, including initial problem framing, identification of key actors (human and more-than-human), and the main temporal governance challenges identified so far. What temporal governance problems does your case present?

Checkpoint 2 (before Week 8): A three-page analysis of how existing governance arrangements address (or fail to address) temporal challenges in your case. What specific material, temporal, ethical, institutional, and expertise-related limitations have you identified?

Checkpoints will be discussed during the second hour of the relevant sessions and will receive written feedback. They are not individually graded; however, failure to submit a checkpoint, or submission that shows insufficient engagement, will result in a deduction of 5% from the final course grade per missed or inadequate checkpoint (up to a maximum of 10%). Late submissions are not accepted.

Each group will also append a brief individual contribution statement (approximately 300 words per student) to the final policy brief, outlining their specific contributions to the project. This statement is not separately graded but allows me to differentiate individual contributions where group dynamics warrant it.

• Attendance: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Online learning activities: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Reading and preparation for class: 4 hours a week / 48 hours a semester
• Research and preparation for group work: 3 hours a week / 36 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 1 hours a week / 12 hours a semester