Information, Power, and Democracy

Nico Stehr is Karl Mannheim Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the European Center for Sustainability Research at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany. His recent publications include Who Owns Knowledge: Knowledge and the Law (with Bernd Weiler, 2008), Knowledge and Democracy (2008), Society: Critical Concepts in Sociology (with Reiner Grundmann, 2008), Climate and Society (with Hans von Storch, 2010), Experts: The Knowledge and Power of Expertise (with Reiner Grundmann, 2011) and The Power of Scientific Knowledge: From Research to Public Policy (with Reiner Grundmann, 2012).

• Introduction; 1. Coming to terms; 2. Accounts of the conditions for the possibility and resilience of liberty; 3. The economic order ensures (defeats) liberty; 4. Scientia est libertas; 5. The knowledge of the powerful; 6. The knowledge of the weak; Knowledge and democracy: summary and conclusions.

'Reflecting deeply on the history, contemporary condition and future possibilities for the knowledge-democracy relationship, Nico Stehr has produced a most considered and original account. This book is both scholarly and provocative.' Alan Irwin, Copenhagen Business School