Last week, I had the pleasure of convening a workshop on space policy at the Schader Foundation in Darmstadt. Marieluna Frank and Arne Sönnichsen have written a brief summary of events over at the SichTRaum Network website. In addition, Heise online features a short article by Hans-Arthur Marsiske, who took part in the discussions. And finally, the WeltraumWagner podcast has just put a two-hour episude about threats to satellite infrastructures featuring some of the discussions at the workshop. The next workshop will focus on ecological approaches to space and how to govern the orbital commons. It is scheduled for 27…
Monat: Januar 2023
The world is entering a New Space Age. Much like the original Space Age of the 1950s to 1970s, we are poised on the brink of momentous changes – not all of them good. Instead of being a forward-looking symbol of hope, the New Space Age is characterized by ambiguities, conflict, and contingencies. It is in this spirit that I am co-organizing a workshop series at the Schader Foundation (Darmstadt) together with Stefan Selke from the Public Science Lab (Hochschule Furtwangen). The goal of the series is to discuss social science perspectives on space and spaceflight. When compared to technical…
I’m pleased to announce the start of a new research project. Following up on our successful project on digital sovereignty narratives in Germany, Kai Oppermann and I want to extend this line of inquiry. Our initial project was mainly concerned with reconstructing how actors speak of digital sovereignty. We now move to a part of the question why they do it, focusing on the idea that there is some kind of international „tech war“ or innovation race going on. We are very grateful to the German Foundation for Peace Research for funding a one-year pilot project which we will use to collect…
There is the fundamental problem in space of what should count as arms at all. Due to the physical conditions in orbit, where every object moves with enormous kinetic energy, almost all space technology is considered inherently dual-use. This has always complicated arms control discussions, so that in recent years there have been increasing attempts to talk less about weapons and more about certain types of behaviour that are considered threatening (e.g. unannounced approaches), for example in the Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities put forward by the EU in 2008. Arms control discussions have been deadlocked for a…
Globalization is dead but what is taking its place? With current debates around „de-globalization“, „decoupling“, „re-shoring“ etc, it seems pretty clear that globalization as an ideological force is done for, even as the empirical process continues to unfold. For various reasons, I am unconvinced that de-globalization and the like are appropriate descriptors for the present and future of global order. In this two-part article, I want to argue for the notion of „post-globalization“ to capture the new realities. I will do so by contrasting central assumptions of globalization and post-globalization ideologies. In the first part, I focus on globalization. This…
I’m happy to announce that since December 2022 I am an Associate Fellow at the Research Department International Security at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK). There, I will mainly contribute my expertise on space security and emerging technologies to expand the Department’s growing profile at the intersection of science/technology and peace/security. A secondary focus will be on Anthropocene security in the global commons, which builds upon my earlier work on territorialization and regime dynamics.