Prof. Sean Ó Riain

Academic Career

Professor of Sociology, Head of Department, Department of Sociology, NUI Maynooth, 2003-present
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California at Davis, 1999-2003
Ph.D. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1999.
M.A. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.
Diploma in Statistics, Trinity College, Dublin, 1991.
European Consortium for Political Research Workshop in Statistical Analysis, University of Essex, England, August 1991 and July/August 1990. 1
B.A., First Class Honours/ Gold Medal, Sociology/Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin, 1990.

Research Interests

I have a number of research interests which connect to Wider Europe - all of which come under the broad heading of the politics of economic development and social inequality. I am particularly interested in the kinds of debates, struggles and conflicts that are shaping the emerging 'knowledge economy' and have researched this in workplaces, technical communities, industries, government agencies and international corporate networks. My main motivation is to explore the kinds of socio-political possibilities within the contemporary global knowledge economy and investigate the political conditions and strategies under which more social and democratic socio-economic orders can be constructed. Recently, I have been particularly interested in the work of Karl Polanyi in this regard.

I am currently supervising PhD students in the areas of: development practices and ideologies; the developmental state and the politics of tourism policy; 'minority' genders in segregated occupations; and the institutional construction of vulnerability to abuse.

I would welcome PhD students interested in any of the areas noted on this page but am particularly interested in: work, employment and inequality; comparative political economy; the state; the politics of globalisation; macro-social change in Ireland; the politics of the knowledge economy. I have used a wide variety of research methods in my own research (ethnographic, interview, survey, documentary, life history) and welcome interested students regardless of methodological approach.

Publications

Books

  • S. Ó Riain and C. Benner. Under contract, completion expected 2008. Re-Working Silicon Valley: Power, Politics and the Informational Labour Process in Silicon Valley and Ireland. (American Sociological Association Rose Series) Russell Sage Foundation: New York.
  • S. Ó Riain, editor, 2006. Special Issue of Economic and Social Review on "Social Partnership: A New System of Governance?" December
  • S. Ó Riain, 2004. The Politics of High Tech Growth: Developmental Network States in the Global Economy (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences 23) New York/ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • S. Ó Riain, B. Parthasarathy, M.Zook (eds) 2004. "Flows and Filters: The Politics of ICT Regions in a Global Economy" Symposium in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28, 3.
  • S. Ó Riain and F. Block, editors. 2003. Special Issue of Politics and Society on "The Legacy of Karl Polanyi"
  • M. Burawoy et al (9 co-editors). 2000. Global Ethnography Berkeley: University of California Press
  • D.F. Hannan, S. Ó Riain, 1993. Pathways to Adulthood in Ireland: Causes and Consequences of Success and Failure in Transitions Among Irish Youth General Research Series No. 161, Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, 253 pages.

Articles

  • A. Kerr and S. Ó Riain, forthcoming, 2007. 'The Knowledge Economy' in The Encyclopedia of Human Geography Elsevier
  • S. Ó Riain, 2006. "Time Space Intensification: Karl Polanyi, the Double Movement and Global Informational Capitalism" Theory and Society 35, 5-6, 507-528
  • S. Ó Riain, 2006. "Universities and the Public Sphere after the Celtic Tiger" Maynooth Philosophical Papers
  • S. Ó Riain, 2006. "Dominance and Change in the Global Information Technology Industry: Military, Bureaucratic and Network State Developmentalisms" Studies in Comparative International Development 41, 1, 76-98
  • S. Ó Riain. 2004. "State, Competition and Industrial Change in Ireland 1991-1999" Economic and Social Review 35,1, 27-54
  • S. Ó Riain. 2004. "The Politics of Mobility in Technology Driven Commodity Chains: Developmental Coalitions in the Irish Software Industry" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28, 3, 642-663
  • Z. Gille and S. Ó Riain, 2002. 'Global Ethnography' Annual Review of Sociology 28:271-95
  • S. Ó Riain, 2002. "High-Tech Communities: Better Work or Just More Work?" Contexts 1, 4, 36-41
  • S. Ó Riain, 2000. 'The Flexible Developmental State: Globalization, Information Technology and the 'Celtic Tiger'' Politics and Society Vol. 28, Number 2, pp. 157-193.
  • S. Ó Riain, 2000. 'States and Markets in an Era of Globalization' Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 26, pp. 187-213.
  • S. Ó Riain, 1997. 'An Offshore Silicon Valley? The Emerging Irish Software Industry' Competition and Change: The Journal of Global Business and Political Economy 2, 175-212.
  • S. Ó Riain, 1997. 'The Birth of a Celtic Tiger?' Communications of the ACM, 40, 3, 11-16.
    Reprinted in: Kathryn Schellenberg, ed. (1997) Computers in Society Seventh Edition, Dushkin/McGraw-Hill: Guildford, CT.
  • D.F. Hannan, S. Ó Riain and C.T. Whelan, 1997. "Youth Unemployment and Psychological Distress in the Republic of Ireland" Journal of Adolescence 20, 3, 307-320.

Current Research

I am interested in social change, particularly as it relates to the emergence of a knowledge economy and society. I see social change as a politically contested process and my research explores this in the workplace and labour market and at the level of the state and civil society. Finally, I am committed to a critical, scientific, empirical sociology that examines the politics of grand social changes but is ethnographically grounded and publicly engaged.

Papers Delivered

A selection of recent papers delivered

  • "Strategies for Local Economic Development" North Dublin Development Coalition, Dublin City University, November 2006
  • "Representing Globalised Ireland", Panel Discussion, Gallery of Photography, Dublin (in association with exhibition by Mark Curran, 'The Breathing Factory'), November 2006
  • "Nurturing Many Knowledges to Grow Ireland's Knowledge Society" Irish Universities Association Conference on 'The Humanities and Social Sciences in the Knowledge Society', Dublin, October 2006
  • "Technology Driven Commodity Chains: Structure, Territory and Governance in the Global Economy" American Sociological Association, August 2006.
  • "Remaking Silicon Valley" NIRSA, NUI Maynooth, May 2006 (with Chris Benner).
  • "Competing State Projects in the Contemporary Irish Political Economy" University College Dublin, March 2006
  • "Dublin: Contradictions of High Tech Growth" Dublin Studies Series, National Library/ NUI Maynooth, February 2006.
  • "Re-Working Silicon Valley: Power, Politics and the Informational Labour Process in Silicon Valley and Ireland" University of Massachusetts, Amherst, December 2005.
  • "Karl Polanyi, the Double Movement and Global Informational Capitalism" NUI Maynooth, December 2005
  • "Competing State Projects in the Contemporary Irish Political Economy" University of Limerick, September 2005

Teaching

The Irish Sociological Imagination (1st year)
Classical Social Theory (2nd year) Gender and Race in the Irish Workplace (3rd year)
Politics of the Global Workplace (3rd year)
State and Society (3rd year)
The Craft and Logic of Social Research (PhD students)
Writing Sociologically (PhD students)

Professional Membership

Sociological Association of Ireland
American Sociological Association
Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics
the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Social Survey
NORFACE
Royal Irish Academy
Irish Universities Association.

Contact Details

Room 16 Auxilia
NUI Maynooth,
Co Kildare, Ireland
Tel: 01 708 3688

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