Conflicts in the Knowledge Society

Sebastian Haunss is a senior researcher in political science at the University of Bremen, where his research interests are social conflicts and political mobilisations in the knowledge society, changes in political and economic legitimacy, social networks and social movements.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The politicization of intellectual property; 3. Conflict and change in the knowledge society; 4. Software patents in Europe; 5. Access to medicines; 6. Pirates and commoners; 7. Conclusion: new cleavages and new collective actors.

'[Haunss] considers that 'the politicization of IP … is embedded in more wide-ranging processes of social change associated with the transformation of industrial societies into knowledge societies'. The book states that from those conflicts have emerged new collective actors 'with the ability to contest the existing dominant order.' Maëli Astruc, Intellectual Property Watch