People at GCK Project

Daniel Barben

Associate Research Professor

Co-Director of GCK

Daniel Barben’s main research interests are in social and political studies of emerging technologies; globalization, transnationality, and democracy; and the environment. Having a strong background in social theory and comparative methodology, he has specialized in problem-oriented fundamental research that links science and technology studies, economic and political sociology, and environmental and cultural studies. His research aims at in-depth understanding of the interdependencies between and the changing configurations of science, technology and society at local, regional, national, supranational (i.e. European Union), and international levels. He thus pursues an approach to social science that engages with the particularities not only of social agency and institutions but also of science and engineering and public policy. 

He studied Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, and Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (1989); earned a doctoral degree in Political Science at the University of Potsdam (1995); and completed a “Habilitation” in Sociology at the Free University of Berlin, which is the qualification for full professorship in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (2004, funded by the German Research Foundation).

He worked as a Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, WZB) in the research area of Technology, Work and Environment from 1989 through 1998 and has been a member of the Center for Technology and Society (ZTG) at the Berlin University of Technology since 1999; served as Managing Director at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT) at Bielefeld University in 2004; worked as a Research Associate at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (funded by the National Science Foundation) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005/06; and held (Visiting) Fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society at the University of Graz in 2000, at the Center for Global Change and Governance at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. in 2000/01, and at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. in 2002.

He is the author of the books Theorietechnik und Politik bei Niklas Luhmann. Grenzen einer universalen Theorie der modernen Gesellschaft (1995, Westdeutscher Verlag) and Politische Ökonomie der Biotechnologie. Innovation und gesellschaftlicher Wandel im internationalen Vergleich (2007, Campus Verlag, Reihe Theorie und Gesellschaft; English edition in preparation), and the co-editor of Biotechnologie – Globalisierung – Demokratie. Politische Gestaltung transnationaler Technologieentwicklung (Edition Sigma, 2000, with Gabriele Abels).

He joined CSPO in fall 2006, where he is a Co-director of the Project on Global and Comparative Knowledges, among other things.