Faculty Portrait

Contact Information

Name: Mark B. Brown

Title: Professor

Office Location: Tahoe Hall 3124

Email: mark.brown@csus.edu

Office Phone: (916) 278-6430

Mailing Address: Department of Political Science, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819-6189 USA

Profile

Mark B. Brown is professor in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Sacramento. He studied at UC Santa Cruz and the University of Göttingen, and received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Bielefeld University. He is the author of Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions, and Representation (MIT Press, 2009), and publications on political representation, deliberation, expertise, climate change, and the politics of identity, among other topics. He teaches courses on modern and contemporary political theory, democratic theory, and the politics of science, technology, and the environment. 

Department of Political Science

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Recent Courses

Modern Political Thought (POLS 111)

Current Political Thought (POLS 112)

Democratic Theory (POLS 115)

Socialism, Marxism, Communism (POLS 119A)

Science, Technology, and Politics (POLS 169A)

Shaping the Modern World (POLS 119D): Racism in the U.S. & Germany

Specialized Studies in Political Theory (POLS 219)

Critical Whiteness Studies in the U.S. & Germany (Bielefeld University)

Books

Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions, and Representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

Honorable Mention, 2010 First Book Award, given by the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association.

Reviewed in Contemporary Political TheoryScience and Public Policy, Social Studies of Science, Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau, Public Understanding of Science, Science Studies, Isis, Minerva, Science as Culture, Environment and Planning A, Metascience, Political Studies, Indian Journal of Political Science, Choice, Environmental Health Perspectives, Chemical Heritage Magazine, Metapsychology, Politikon, Review of Policy Research

Chinese simplified character translation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2015.

Politikberatung und Parlament [Political Advice and Parliament], with Justus Lentsch and Peter Weingart. Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2006.

Reviewed in Soziologische Revue, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

Selected Other Publications

"Birth Strikes, Climate Responsibility, and Hannah Arendt," The Review of Politics. Published online 2024:1-24. doi:10.1017/S003467052400024X

"Reparations in California are about political responsibility, not individual guilt," Sacramento Bee, May 10, 2023. Online version.

"White Identity Politics in the United States," in Racializing Humankind: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Practices of ‘Race’ and Racism, ed. Julian T. D. Gärtner and Malin S. Wilckens (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2022), 135-155.

Review of Politics and Expertise: How to Use Science in a Democratic Society by Zeynep Pamuk. Perspectives on Politics 20: 3 (2022): 1087–1088.

"James Baldwin and the Politics of White Identity," Contemporary Political Theory 20:1 (2021): 1-22.

"Democracy and Representation," in Research Handbook on Political Representation, ed. Maurizio Cotta and Federico Russo (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020), 36-47.

"Deliberation and Representation," in The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, ed. André Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane J. Mansbridge, and Mark E. Warren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 171-186.

"Remembering Benjamin Barber on Philosophy, Politics, and Political Theory," in R. Battistoni, et al., Special Issue: Benjamin Barber and the Practice of Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory 17 (2018): 478–510, at 499–504. 

"Speaking for Nature: Hobbes, Latour, and the Democratic Representation of Nonhumans," Science and Technology Studies 31:1 (2018): 31-51.

"Not Everything Political is Politics: Reflections on the March for Science," Public Seminar, June 2, 2017.

"Beyond Privatization in U.S. Higher Education," in International Responses to the Academic Manifesto: Reports from 14 Countries, ed. Willem Halffman and Hans Radder. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Special Report (2017): 9-14.

"Environmental Science and Politics," in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, ed. Teena Gabrielson, Cheryl Hall, John M. Meyer, and David Schlosberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 491-504.

"Three Approaches to Environmental Political Theory," Contemporary Political Theory 15:3 (2016): e21-e28.

"Politicizing Science: Conceptions of Politics in Science and Technology Studies," Social Studies of Science 45:1 (2015): 3-30.

"Climate Science, Populism, and the Democracy of Rejection," in Culture, Politics, and Climate Change: How Information Shapes Our Common Future, ed. Deserai A. Crow and Max Boykoff (Routledge Earthscan, 2014), 129-145.

“Expertise and Deliberative Democracy,” in Deliberative Democracy: Issues and Cases, ed. Stephen Elstub and Peter McLaverty (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 50-68.

"Science and Democracy," in Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, ed. Rick Valelly. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Review of Science in a Democratic Society, by Philip Kitcher, Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy 51:3 (2013): 389-397.

"Public University Funding and the Privatization of Politics," Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science 7:1 (2013): 21-28.

"Too Much to Read," Inside Higher Ed, April 20, 2012.

"Coercion, Corruption, and Politics in the Commodification of Academic Science," in The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University, edited by Hans Radder, 259-276. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010. Reviewed in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews; Krisis

Brown, Mark B., and David H. Guston, “Science, Democracy, and the Right to Research,Science and Engineering Ethics 15:3 (2009): 351-366.

“Fairly Balanced: The Politics of Representation on Government Advisory Committees,” Political Research Quarterly 61:4 (2008): 547-560. 

Review of The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics by Roger S. Pielke, Jr., in Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy 46:4 (2008): 485-489.

"Can Technologies Represent Their Publics?" Technology in Society 29:3 (2007): 327–338.

"Citizen Panels and the Concept of Representation," Journal of Political Philosophy 14:2 (2006): 203–225

“The Political Philosophy of Science Policy,” Essay Review of Science, Truth, and Democracy by Philip Kitcher, in Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy 42:1 (2004): 77-95.

“The Civic Shaping of Technology: California’s Electric Vehicle Program,” Science, Technology, & Human Values 26:1 (2001): 56-81.

Conceptions of Science in Political Theory: A Tale of Cloaks and Daggers,” in Vocations of Political Theory, edited by Jason A. Frank and John Tambornino (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 189-211.