Sovereignty Unmasked: Science & Technology Studies, the Pandemic, and Political Theory
Wednesday 9 March 2022, 5pm
Oxford Martin School, 34 Broad Street OX1 3BD, and on MS Teams
Professor Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard University)
Uprisings against public health policies such as vaccine and mask mandates during the late stages of the Covid-19 pandemic have brought to the forefront modernity’s tacit social contract with science and expertise. Focusing on the governance regime that I call “public health sovereignty,” I will explore the rules and practices of delegation that help explain why resistance has followed divergent paths across the 16 countries included in a Harvard-Cornell comparative study of national responses to Covid-19. The talk will also reflect on the method of comparison as a device for illuminating STS’s contributions to political and constitutional theory.