Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political economy and social change'
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1
Simmons, Robin. "Further education, political economy and social change." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2009. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/7071/.
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This submission contains eight papers and a synoptic commentary to be examined for the award of PhD on the Basis of Published Work. The papers focus upon the further education (FE) system in England. Each examines significant contemporary or historical issues and provides a critical analysis of the changing nature of FE. Collectively, the publications constitute an original and significant contribution to understanding further education and the social and economic context within which it is placed. The commentary highlights the links between the different papers and demonstrates their coherence; it locates the publications within an overarching analytical framework; and it shows how the work submitted makes a significant contribution to knowledge. It also explains my contribution to the three coauthored papers that constitute part of this thesis. It is argued that, taken together, my work provides a sustained and consistent critique of the English further education system from a critical materialist perspective.
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Meckelburg, Rebecca. "Subaltern agency and the political economy of rural social change." Thesis, Meckelburg, Rebecca (2019) Subaltern agency and the political economy of rural social change. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2019. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/57177/.
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Twenty years after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, most political studies of Indonesia’s post-New Order democratic ‘transition’ have left the ideas, forms of organisation, strategies and impacts of lower class struggles largely unexamined. Scholarly works that address the dynamics of social and political change have largely focussed on the mixed outcomes of decentralisation and democratisation of state power for elite actors since Reformasi, providing little or no framework for conceptualising popular political action in the context of this institutional restructuring. Drawing on propositions from Marxist political economy, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and social reproduction theory, this thesis develops analytical approaches for investigating the dynamics of rural subaltern agency in post-New Order Indonesia, focussing on how rural subaltern actors ‘do politics’. The approach applied here extends the analysis of political studies beyond the state, its institutions and hegemonic practices by focussing on the persistent, albeit often fragmented, popular struggles to secure control of resources and shift social relations of power in favour of subaltern and other non-elite classes. It considers the connections between everyday popular encroachments on hegemonic power, social movement struggles and moments of social and political crisis with the potential for transformative social and political change.
Using qualitative data from extensive fieldwork in Central Java, the thesis demonstrates that legacies of subaltern struggles over power and land as a resource are reflected in villagers’ contemporary relations with state institutions and other forms of social organisation. They organise across multiple scales, and employ diverse tactics including shifting alliances with other social actors to further their interests. Their political claims are strongly informed by cultures and ideologies that have their roots in previous periods of collective action, which are reproduced or transformed though their experiences in contemporary social struggles. Finally, the thesis considers how these diverse expressions of subaltern social struggles might contribute to progressive forms of agrarian development and the broadening and deepening of pro-poor democratic struggles in Indonesia.
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Cuadra, Montiel Héctor. "Tracing the social processes of change : the political economy of Mexico's transformations." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2005. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/87/.
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This thesis is a theoretical exercise which relies on the Strategic Relational Approach to analyze the broad social processes of change and to deliver a critical account of the contingent contemporary transformations in Mexico. By engaging in an exercise of process-tracing, this thesis aims to examine critically key features of social change, challenging economic deterministic accounts, and ignoring social and political circumstances. Its focus is on the application of theories of change to illuminate broad trajectories of reform. By presenting a theoretically informed empirical narrative of contemporary transformations in Mexico, it is possible to enhance the insight into the particular processes of commodification, democratization and integration. Moreover, the varied and combined paces, depths and strengths of these transformations provide an excellent opportunity to understand and assess the importance of tendencies and countertendencies in play. By referring to the analytical tools of structure and agency, material and ideational elements, all within specific locations of time and space the contingency of processes of change is recognized. The restoration of agency is a crucial element for an analysis of the socially embedded processes of commodification, democratization and integration. By relying on the accounts of political economists and economic sociologists, it can be shown that the processes are deeply political and non-determinate. Therefore, alongside constraints, they also offer windows of opportunity which encompass a broader social and political spectrum and possibilities of transformation. Since different modes of governance are not necessarily incompatible with each other, the account offered here focuses on the state, the market and networking, as well as their complementary roles, which are not reducible to determinisms or inevitability of any sort.
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Lavers, Tom. "The political economy of social policy and agrarian transformation in Ethiopia." Thesis, University of Bath, 2013. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.589653.
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This thesis is concerned with social policy during structural transformation, focusing on the case of Ethiopia. The thesis takes a realist, case-based approach to the study of social policy, which recognises that political actors construct the domain of 'social' policy within legitimising discourses in specific national-historical contexts. Social policy is a key aspect of state-society relations and an inherently political field of study. Consequently, the study integrates analysis of cleavages in domestic society along class and ethnic lines, the role of state organisations and international influences, and their impact on the social policy pronouncements by senior government officials and implementation of those policies on the ground. In the Ethiopian case, this approach highlights the centrality of land to social policy and state• society relations. In particular, state land ownership is a key part of the government's development strategy that aims to combine egalitarian agricultural growth with security for smallholders. Nevertheless, the failure to expand the use of productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs, which constitute key complements to the use of land for social objectives, has led to differentiation in social policy provision along class, gender, age and ethnic lines. Micro-level case studies link the land question to food security, including the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), and processes of agricultural commercialisation, notably the so-called 'global land grab'. A main argument of the thesis is that the Ethiopian government is attempting to manage social processes in order to minimise the social and political upheaval involved in structural transformation, and that social pol icy is a central means by which it does so. The development strategy requires social policies that enable the government to control the allocation of factors of production, necessitating restrictions on the rights of individuals and groups. As such, this strategy is intricately intertwined with political authority.
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Magontier, Pierre. "Essays on the Political Economy of Urbanization and Climate Change." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669287.
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The world has been urbanizing at an incredible pace during the last century. Meanwhile, the global rise in temperatures has led to the increased probabilities of gradual and sudden natural disasters, putting large shares of developed lands at risk. While the benefits from agglomeration economies are well documented, less is known on how local stakeholders make land-use decisions in the context of climate change. Understanding how economic agents in charge of land conversion cope with climate threats while trying to preserve urban opportunities is a paramount challenge for the next decades. This dissertation aims to shed some light on a few of the mechanisms at play, looking at spaces threatened by diverse environmental catastrophes.
In this regard, the second chapter of this thesis, 'The Political Economy of Coastal Destruction,' studies the impact of political cooperation on coastal development choices, made in Spain between 1979 and 2015. We argue that political cooperation between municipal neighbors is fostered by local political alignment. We rely on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design in close elections to assess the impact of political homophily on coastal development. We show that coastal municipalities who decide on coastal development in isolation may overdevelop as they fail to internalize the positive amenity spillovers caused by land preservation. Within the first-kilometer fringe, local governments sharing their neighbors' ideology develop 63% less than otherwise similar but politically isolated governments. This effect vanishes as we consider farther distances from the coastline, suggesting that amenity spillovers are an essential driver of this result.
While overdevelopment induces higher exposure to hazards when locating in disaster-prone areas, appropriate preparation can mitigate the chances of suffering from a natural catastrophe. However, mitigation measures do not only reduce but also signal the inherent risks of a location. I focus on the trade-off between risk reduction and risk disclosure in the third chapter of my thesis, 'Does media coverage affect government preparation for natural disasters?'. I demonstrate that in the absence of information circulating about local dangers, local governments, who seek to protect property values in their jurisdiction, have an incentive not to prepare to avoid signaling the latent risks to otherwise uninformed investors. To test this hypothesis, I construct an exogenous measure of newspaper coverage of storms, which is a good predictor of the number of newspaper articles published about these events. I show that conditional on being hit by a storm, a one-standard-deviation increase in my Coverage measure leads to a 54% increase in the number of mitigation projects implemented in a ZIP code. This result is primarily driven by neighborhoods with high pre-treatment levels of vacant houses, renters, and housing-units owned with a mortgage, suggesting that non-resident investors are the firsts to respond to the information shock.
Considering that real estate interests could capture governments' preparation incentives, I questioned whether individuals learn from past disasters when making a development decision. In the last paper of this thesis, 'The Dynamics of Land Development around Flood Zones,' we study the land conversion response to an inundation. Exploiting a rich dataset on historical flood records in Spain, we show that new development drops at the municipal level by -14.64% in the year following an inundation, and peaks down at -26% in the sixth year. The decrease in land conversion is, on average, permanent. This outcome is primarily driven by municipalities with higher historical flood frequencies, and by floods occurring after the central government regulated constructions around flood zones, in 1986. New development neither occurs farther away from flood zones nor on the higher ground. These results could be consistent with several underlying mechanisms. In particular, if individuals do account for disaster history when making a development decision, it is puzzling to observe they prefer not to build rather than building away from the acknowledged source of dangers. We speculate that a misinterpretation of the risks caused by an availability bias, or an aversion to amenity losses, could explain this response.
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Deaton, Richard Lee. "The political economy of pensions : power, politics and social change : a comparative study of Canada, Britain and the United States." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1986. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4038/.
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This thesis suggests that the pension systems in the advanced capitalist countries of Canada, Britain and the United States are on the verge of a crisis and that the problems associated with the marginalization and immiseration of the elderly, the universal and specific limitations of employer-based occupational pension plans and the underdevelopment of the state pension system are inherently and organically linked to the structure of private pension fund power. The impending pension crisis in these countries is explained by four converging structural considerations: first, the inadequate level of retirement income of the elderly; second, the increasing proportion of elderly in the population and the costs associated with an aging population; third, the general and particular limitations of the private pension system; fourth, under conditions of advanced capitalism, the corporate sector and state appropriating the occupational and state pension systems as a source of investment and social capital respectively to meet their finance requirements. The pension system now occupies a strategic position in advanced capitalist economies. The increasing economic power of pension funds is based on their role as financial intermediaries and institutional investors, with significant control over the economic surplus and reserve capital. The structure of pension fund power exhibits itself through formal and informal linkages to financial capital. The private pension system's investment and capital accumulation function has been transformed from a latent to a manifest function to supply the investment requirements of the economy and private sector. The private pension industry, characterized by a high degree of concentration and centralization of capital, increasingly facilitates the systemic fusion of the finance and industrial sectors of advanced capitalist economies. The symbiotic relationship between the corporate sector and private pension industry is identified as the primary economic and political obstacle to reforming and expanding the state pension system in the countries studied. It is concluded that the dynamic of the conflicting structural interests underlying the pension crisis may generate a heightened awareness of power and politics in capitalist countries by transcending the traditional limitations of economism and welfarism. The pension issue, both in the short and long-term, may generate increased social tension manifesting itself through intergenerational, sectoral, political and industrial relations conflict. This may result in increased politicization and progressive alternative economic strategies based on the pension system's investment and capital accumulation function. Public policy towards aging and pensions identifies personal problems and structural issues which may have significance in terms of power, politics, and social change in the future.
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Ruppel, Julia Franziska. "Ghana : from fragility to resilience? : understanding the formation of a new political settlement from a critical political economy perspective." Thesis, University of Bradford, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/15062.
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During the late 1970s Ghana was described as a collapsed and failed state. In contrast, today it is hailed internationally as beacon of democracy and stability in West Africa. In light of Ghana’s drastic image change from a fragile and even collapsed polity to a resilient state, this thesis contributes to the statebuilding debate by analysing the social change that occurred. Grounded in a critical theory approach the thesis applies a political settlement analysis to explore how power is distributed and changed over time between contending social groups; exploring the extent to which this is embedded in formal and informal institutional arrangements. Ghana’s 2012 elections serve as an empirical basis and lens to observe the country’s current settlement. This approach enables a fine grained within-case comparison with Ghana’s collapsed post-independent settlement. The analysis illustrates that while there has been no transformation of the Ghanaian state, however, continuous incremental structural change has occurred within it, as demonstrated by a structurally altered constellation of power. While internationally propagated (neo-)liberal economic and political reforms had a vital impact on the reconstruction process of state-society relations, Ghana’s labelling as “success story” evokes the distorted idea of a resilient liberal state. The sustainability of Ghana’s current settlement characterised by electoral competitive clientelism depends on a continued inflow of foreign capital. So far the mutually beneficial interest of portraying Ghana as a resilient state by its elites and donors ensures the flow of needed financial assistance to preserve the settlement.
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Larsen, Jean. "Farmworkers and Strawberry Cultivation in Oxnard, California: A Political Economy Approach." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/502.
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I argue that although the abusive conditions experienced by farmworkers have complicated causes, they have persisted and will continue to persist as long as farmworkers are stripped of virtually any political and economic power. The chapters build upon each other logically, beginning with the second chapter, which uses farmworker testimony to establish that a combination of economic and political circumstances have kept farmworkers from protesting not only methyl bromide, but every other dangerous condition they face in the fields. In the third chapter, I argue that despite commonly held assumptions, growers are virtually powerless to change the circumstances of farm workers because competition they face in the strawberry market precludes any single grower from paying their workers more than the going rate. I will conclude by arguing that to begin to improve the working conditions of farm workers, consumers will need to engage with the issue on both political and economic levels. The conclusion builds on the arguments established in the second and third chapters; namely, given that neither growers nor farmworkers will be able to leverage change within the current political and economic context, consumers are the only remaining actors with both the incentives and power to influence both the political and economic arenas. Just as scholarship that focuses on only one set of actors (i.e. only growers or only regulators) will necessarily fail to provide practical solutions because such papers tend to discount the pressures faced by and produced by other actors, so too will change be impossible without consumers who advocate that farmworkers both receive a just share of political voice and fair wages.
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Gurses, Mehmet Mason T. David. "Wealth and regime formation social and economic origins of the change toward democracy /." [Denton, Tex.] : University of North Texas, 2007. http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-3966.
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Remtilla, Aliaa. "Re-producing social relations : political and economic change and Islam in post-Soviet Tajik Ishkashim." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2012. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/reproducing-social-relations-political-and-economic-change-and-islam-in-postsoviet-tajik-ishkashim(107bfabb-2c1c-4fb8-90b8-323b578da7c8).html.
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This dissertation explores what it means to be post-socialist for Ismaili Muslims living in the Ishkashim district of Tajik Badakhshan. It examines the legacies of the Soviet era in people’s everyday lives, questioning how people continue to see themselves as socialist notwithstanding the putative end of state socialism. Part of what it means to be socialist has to do with expectations of what the state should provide. Tajik Ishkashimis experienced the Soviet Union as an allocative centre that helped them greatly. The post-Soviet Tajik state is unable to provide for Tajik Ishkashimis in the way of the former Soviet Union. I suggest that Tajik Ishkashimis’ religious leader, the Aga Khan, and his development institutions have gone some way toward filling this gap, making the Imam appear to be the new paternalist centre. I propose that we think through Ishkashimis’ memories of their relations with the Soviet allocative centre through what I call an “economy of grace”. Drawing on Pitt-Rivers’ theorization of “grace” as a morally-driven gift of excess that the receiver is never expected to (be able to) return, I trace the ways in which this economy of grace continues to frame Ishkashimis’ post-Soviet engagement with the Imam and his institutions, if not with the Tajik state. I then explore the moral legacies of Soviet socialism by examining how Ishkashimis try to maintain values that they associate with socialism, most notably the privileging of social relations over the market. Where both the Tajik state and the Imam’s institutions fail to provide for Tajik Ishkashimis in the way of the former Soviet state, Ishkashimis turn to labour migration. I draw on Greenberg’s (2011) and Jansen’s (2011) definition of “normal” as the predictability of daily life to demonstrate that remittances enable those living at home to maintain the rhythms and trajectories of “normal” village life. One of the effects of migration, however, is that the absence of migrants has made villages in Ishkashim no longer feel like home. It is my contention that wedding videos actualize a transnational home by giving hope that migrants who had been present in Ishkashim for when the wedding was taped might one-day return.Many hope that the Imam will create jobs in Ishkashim that will bring home migrants because they see that his development projects in Afghanistan have had this effect. Tajik Ishkashimis want their state to enable such development work on their side too, but they also worry that the work of the Imam and his institutions will force them to negotiate the norms and values of what it means to be Ishkashimi with their cross-border Afghan kin. And so, they look to the Tajik state to firmly enforce the border and keep clear the division between Tajik and Afghan Ishkashim. Ultimately, notwithstanding the incapacity of the Imam and his institutions to provide for Tajik Ishkashimis in the way of the former Soviet state, the Imam continues to garner legitimacy because he is also a spiritual leader. As such, the Imam commands a moral order, motivating people to be good so that they can achieve spiritual enlightenment. I explain that for Tajik Ishkashimis, being good is not (yet) defined by orthopraxy. Instead, Ishkashimis strive to be good in their own ways within the context of the changing socio-economic circumstances. In many ways, even though Tajik Ishkashimis’ present socio-economic situation is ostensibly worse than during the Soviet era, they now have access to the Imam in a way they never had before. Tajik Ishkashimis hold out hope for a better future, one that looks very much like their Soviet past, only better. Better because it has the Imam in it and the spiritual component of his leadership gives him the potential to satisfy them in ways that the former Soviet state could never have.
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Meng, Ke. "Political institutions, skill formation, and pension policy : the political-economic logic of China's pension system." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4fd792f6-3b4a-46e0-9566-582de50e7106.
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A central theme in the comparative political economy of the welfare state is the complementaries between political institutions, social policy, and labour markets. Yet little has been written to uncover this political-economic nexus in China, the world’s second largest economy. This thesis partly addresses this gap by studying the country’s public pension arrangement, the most expensive component of the Chinese welfare state. It reveals the working of the political-economic nexus in contemporary China by showing how it leads to two puzzling characteristics of the Chinese pension system, namely the rapid expansion in the absence of electoral pressures and the persistent regional fragmentation despite an authoritarian central government. It argues that the decentralised authoritarianism, in which China’s authoritarian central state delegates to regional governments and motivates them to achieve its developmental goals, drives municipal authorities to compete with each other in generating economic growth. In the inter-municipal economic competition, local leaders adopt an expansionary yet localising pension policy. This facilitates the formation of specific industrial skills, which are productive for particular local industries, and the retention of skilled industrial workers. All of this is important to local economic development in a context of industrial upgrading and labour market tightening. It is argued this is the political-economic logic of China’s pension system.
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MacDonald, Laura Emily. "Selling what people need : how the modern Broadway musical capitalized on economic, social and political change." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.554329.
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This project investigates how the American musical reflected and engaged with key economic, social and political events and trends in order to sustain itself as a profitable, commercial form, from the late 1950s through to the late 1980s. Beginning with an examination of West Side Story (1957) as a reaction to a changing post-war American society and an entertainment industry in transition, this project positions the musical as an enduring form of popular culture which found continual success by embedding itself in the conditions of its production. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, feminism and globalization are just some of the issues and events which the Broadway musical engaged with to create emotional moments for audiences to experience. This project explores the complexities of these relationships between the musical and its social and political context, to suggest it was by pursuing and navigating the events and issues dominating the United States in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that the musical was able to maintain its commerciality, continuing to be manufactured for consumption today. Drawing on analysis of songs, libretti, media coverage and advertising, each chapter in this thesis contextualizes a set of landmark musicals within a particular social or political issue to ask how authors, producers and audiences sustained this commercial form. It will conclude with a discussion of the British invasion of Broadway, in particular of the last major musical of the invasion period, Miss Saigon (1991). With its opening and immediate success, the making and marketing of the Broadway musical had clearly shifted into being a global rather than exclusively American commercial venture.
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McCann, F. "Change in the political, economic, social and value systems of Ireland : A study in capitalist development." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.378686.
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Yu, Xu. "The press and social change a case study of the "World economic herald" in China's political reform /." access full-text online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium, 1991. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?9217227.
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Good, Shirley A. "A consciousness of their own? : class, 'race' and gender in the lives of white working-class women in post-war Birmingham (1945-1990)." Thesis, Staffordshire University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.341694.
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De, Wet C. J., C. W. Manona, and Robin Palmer. "Local responses to political policies and socio-economic change in the Keiskammahoek district, Ciskei: anthropological perspectives." Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1810.
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This report relates to research done in the Keiskammahoek district of the Ciskei (see Map No. l) during 1989 and early 1990, with the financial support of the Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. The project was designed and conducted against the background of previous research, and has served as a pilot project for a larger project, entitled "Socio- Economic Change and Development Planning in the Keiskammahoek District of the Ciskei". This larger project which is currently in progress, (and which has been funded by the Institute for Research Development of the HSRC, by the Chairman's Fund of Anglo-American and De Beers, and by Johannesburg Consolidated Investments Co Ltd), is intended to give rise to a process of consultation and planning, leading to various local-level development initiatives in the District.Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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Da, Fonseca Eduardo Giannetti. "Beliefs in action : an examination of the role of economic philosophy in the processes of belief-formation and social change." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.238207.
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Benussi, Matteo. "Aspiring Muslims in Russia : form-of-life and political economy of virtue in Povolzhye's 'halal movement'." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/276156.
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This thesis is concerned with the ways in which Muslims in Russia’s Povolzhye region define, and strive towards, spiritual and material well-being. It explores how pious subjectivities are cultivated in a secular and often politically hostile environment. In addition, it deals with Povolzhye Muslims’s pursuit of worldly success in the context of social change brought about by Russia’s transition to a market economy. Povolzhye is a prosperous, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional historical region, home to Russia’s second largest ethnic group, the Volga Tatars. Although the Tatars have been Sunni Muslims for centuries, the post-Soviet emergence of cosmopolitan, scripturalist piety trends – which I collectively refer to as Povolzhye’s ‘halal movement’ – has raised unprecedented concerns and disputes about the meaning of Muslimness and the place of Muslims in Russian society. Scripturalist virtue-ethics projects have been underrepresented within the expanding body of anthropological literature concerning Islam in the former USSR, and particularly in the Russian Federation. With its explicit ethnographic focus on Povolzhye’s halal movement, this work aims at filling this gap. The halal movement is characterised by its hypermodern transnational imagery as well as significant discursive overlapping with the realms of business and economy. The pursuit of a virtuous existence is particularly appealing to those ascending sectors of society that most successfully engage with Russia’s post-socialist free-market environment, while the idiom of piety both communicates and dissimulates novel forms of stratification and exclusion. This project brings together anthropological theories of ethical self-cultivation with approaches that focus on power, social change, and political economy. In order to explore the political life of the halal movement vis-à-vis both state institutions and the market, I employ Giorgio Agamben’s notions of ‘form-of-life’ and ‘rule/law’, which shed light on the relationship between power and virtue in original ways. In addition, particular attention is given to the social distribution of virtue and the role it plays in reproducing distinction, status, and a ‘capitalist spirit’.
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Schoff, Staci Leigh. "Economic Inequality's Correlation with Political Inequality and Inequality of Opportunity and the Implications for Social Justice Theory." PDXScholar, 2013. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/980.
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In 2004 the American Political Science Association ("APSA") published research exploring whether the rising income inequality in the United States had an effect on political equality. Although the APSA found tremendous evidence of a correlation between income and political power, the APSA nonetheless concluded that the issue could not be conclusively determined without further analysis.
The intent of this thesis is to argue the position that economic inequality is heavily implicated in both political equality and equality of opportunity, and to propose a political theory that directly addresses - rather than evades - this issue. A conclusion drawn in this paper is that it is necessary in liberal capitalist environments to place constraints on individual economic liberty for the sake of maintaining some degree of economic equality. I show in this paper that this conclusion is consistent with both the liberal tradition and American political culture.
This paper accepts - rather than circumvents - the fundamental principle that income inequality is inevitable in a capitalist democracy as is the ability of money to purchase positions, power and assorted privileges. Therefore, it should be the goal of social justice theory to ensure the gap between the richest and poorest be allowed to be great enough to respect individual choice and responsibility, but not great enough to dampen the opportunities available to those born into the bottom of the economic scale or to permit those born into the top of the economic ladder to exert oppressive power over the rest.
In the final chapter I propose four methods of narrowing economic inequality. These include a minimum standard, minimum wage and income tax reform, a tax and cap on wealth and an absolute inheritance cap. These four methods of limiting economic inequality are directed at narrowing, if not eliminating political inequality and inequality of opportunity.
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Efremov, Steven M. "The Role of Inflation in Soviet History: Prices, Living Standards, and Political Change." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2012. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1474.
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This thesis discusses the interaction between inflation, living standards, and political change in Soviet/Russian history. It traces the establishment and evolution of the Soviet monetary system, inflationary episodes, and their consequences. The goal of this study is to show how inflation affects the lives of ordinary people and how it has contributed to larger changes in Soviet history. Sources include economic statistics and analysis from articles and monographs, as well as first-hand accounts from interviews and newspapers. The results show that inflation was a factor in both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia's first hyperinflation (1917-1923) nearly destroyed the economy, and the Bolsheviks were forced to stabilize prices. The Soviet system of price controls prevented inflation, but it also created persistent shortages of food and consumer goods. Mikhail Gorbachev tried to alleviate these problems, but his efforts resulted instead in Russia's second hyperinflation (1992-1993).
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Cunningham, Caitlin. "Conflicted Commons: A Local Makerspace in the Neoliberal City." VCU Scholars Compass, 2017. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4802.
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The commodification of culture, space, and resources is incentivized by neoliberal urbanism. In response, we have seen an attempt to develop collectively organized, oppositional spaces within urban places. The tensions that arise when considering the production of commons in the development of the neoliberal city are the central focus of this paper. As I will observe, these spaces are subjected to commodification as they become increasingly de-politicized through neoliberal ideologies. In order to theorize about these contradictory elements, I observe a makerspace in Richmond, Virginia called HackRVA. Specifically, I consider HackRVA as an urban commons. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, I consider how HackRVA engages with the neoliberal city of Richmond and how the organization and maintenance of their space and their community reflects commoning as social reproduction. I find that HackRVA’s relationship to the city is complicated as the community within the space both contests and assimilates to the creative economy.
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Wilkoszewski, Harald. "Germany's social policy challenge : public integenerational transfers in light of demographic change." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/886/.
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This dissertation addresses the question of to what extent growing numbers of older people who might have similar preferences regarding public intergenerational transfers (family and pension policies) will limit the scope of future social policy reforms in Germany. We are interested in to what extent the shift in the country's demography will trigger a so-called "gerontocracy." As a theoretical framework, we combine Mannheim's concept of political generations with a demographic life-course approach. According to Mannheim, growing numbers of a societal group, combine with unified preferences within the group, enhance the group's political power. To empirically test this hypothesis, we use three analytical steps: First, we analyse the future age composition of the German population, including familial characteristics, using a micro-simulation approach. The results suggest that the number of older people will grow substantially over the coming decades, particularly the share of older people who will remain childless and who will not be married. Second, we analyse preferences regarding redistributive social policies according to age, parity, and marital status, based on recent survey data. Generalised Linear Models and Generalised Additive Models are applied to examine what the effects of fdemographic indicators are on these preferences. Results show that older people are less in favour of transfers ot the younger generation than their younger counterparts. This is particularly true of childless interviewees. Third, we explore the extent to which these developments are likely to have an impact on the political sphere. How do policy makers perceive ageing and the preferences structures found? How do elderly interest groups define their roles in light of these results? In-depth interviews with these stakeholders provide a mixed picture: whereas most interviewees are convinced that older people have gained more power due to their bigger population share, there is little awareness of differences in policy preferences between various demographic groups. The biggest challenge for social policy makers is, therefore, to find ways to mediate between these two interesrs. if they fail to do so, a conflict of generations might become a realistic scenario for Germany.
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Gurses, Mehmet. "Wealth and Regime Formation: Social and Economic Origins of the Change Toward Democracy." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2007. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3966/.
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This study explores the relationship between economic development, social mobility, elites, and regime formation. I argue that the genesis of regime formation, in general, and of democratic regimes, in particular, is determined by the type of economic structure a society possesses, on the one hand, and on the degree the to which demands from disfranchised groups do or do not pose a substantial threat to the interests of elites who occupy the upper strata of the social and economic status hierarchy. Second I demonstrate that the dynamics of transition to wider political participation, as the core element of a democratic system of governance, and the survival of such change are different. In what follows I illustrate that some factors that have been found to dampen the chances for wider participation or have been found to be unrelated to onset of a democratic system of governance have considerable impacts on the durability of the democratic regimes. In a nutshell, the analysis points to the positive effects of mineral wealth and income inequality on the prospects of a democratic survival. Using a cross-national time series data set for all countries for the period between 1960 and 1999 I put the hypotheses to the test. I use binary logit, ordered logit, and ordinary least squares (OLS) to delineate the link between socioeconomic changes and the transition to wider participation. Survival analyses are employed to test for what factors account for the durability of a democratic regime.
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Dubb, Alexander. "Dynamics of social reproduction and differentiation among small-scale sugarcane farmers in two rural wards of Kwazulu-Natal." University of the Western Cape, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/4250.
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Magister Philosophiae - MPhilDynamics of Social Reproduction and Differentiation among Small-Scale Sugarcane Farmers in Two Rural Wards of KwaZulu-Natal A. Dubb M.Phil thesis, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape. Outgrower or contract-farming schemes have long been considered an important „pro-poor‟ method of incorporating small-scale farmers into agro-commodity chains, oft defined by their capital intensity and consequent high barriers of entry. Nonetheless, critics have observed that such schemes often operate under highly imbalanced relations of power between farmers and processors, generate substantial inequality, and negatively impact on household food security. In the province of KwaZulu-Natal, home to much of South Africa‟s sugar industry, the number of small-scale sugarcane outgrowers increased rapidly from near nothing in the late 1960s to around 50,000 in the early 2000s; an increase born out of industry-subsidized miller initiatives, disguised as micro-credit, to bring commercially inalienable Bantustan land under cane production. However, in the past decade small-scale sugarcane growers have faced a precipitous decline following the restructuring of the sugar industry in the 1990s and the onset of drought in the 2000s. This study seeks to trace the origins and shifting structural foundations of small-scale sugarcane production and investigate its impacts on dynamics of social reproduction and accumulation in two rural wards of the Umfolozi region, in the wake of the sale of the central mill by the multinational corporation Illovo to a consortium of largescale white sugarcane growers. Utilizing survey data from 74 small-scale grower homesteads and life-history interviews, it is argued that regulatory restructuring resulted in deteriorating terms of exchange and the retraction of miller oversight in production, cane-haulage and ploughing operations, hence devolved to commercially unstable local contractors. Growers have subsequently struggled to compensate for consequent capital inefficiencies through intensified exploitation, largely due to the successful impact of social grants in mitigating the desperation of family and hired labour, and further face considerable barriers to expansion in land. While proceeds from sugarcane continue to represent an additional source of coveted cash-income, sparse off-farm income opportunities have gained prominence as a basis for stabilizing consumption and some re-investment in cane. The centrality of incomediversification for simple reproduction and limited accumulation has rendered the dynamics of social differentiation to be both unstable and reversible, and has closely tied sustained cane production to the labour content of non-cane income sources. Meanwhile, with less direct oversight in production, millers face the challenge of retaining their implicit „grab‟ on customary land, throwing into relief the contradictions inherent in attempts „from above‟ to foster a nominal „peasant‟ class „from below‟.
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Winter, Brian P. "Democratic Strength and Terrorism: An Economic Approach." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/106.
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There has been much literature about the economic effects of terrorism in democratic countries, but this literature often considers democracy to be a binary variable. This paper sought to explore how the effects might differ depending on the strength of a democracy. In the end, I found that the numbers of attacks and the effects of those attacks do not follow a linear path. The results for autocracies and anocracies require further analysis, but democracies have revealed interesting results. It seems that democracies as a whole have more terrorist attacks, but, within this group, the more democratic a country is the fewer attacks are carried out.
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Gittens, Thomas W. (Thomas Wilton) Carleton University Dissertation Political Science. "Political change in the Commonwealth Caribbean, 1960-1980; the dynamics of interaction of the economic, social and politico- ideological levels in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Barbados." Ottawa, 1988.
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Doody, Sean T. "The Politics and Ethics of Food Localism: An Exploratory Quantitative Inquiry." VCU Scholars Compass, 2016. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4120.
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The local food movement has become a prominent force in the U.S. food market, as represented by the explosive expansion of direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketplaces across the country. Concurrent with the expansion of these DTC marketplaces has been the development of the social ideal of localism: a political and ethical paradigm that valorizes artisanal production and smallness, vilifies globalization, and seeks to recapture a sense of place and community that has been lost under the alienating conditions of capitalism’s gigantism. Supporters of localism understand the movement to be a substantial political and economic threat to global capitalism, and ascribe distinct, counter-hegemonic attributes to localized consumption and production. However, critics argue that localism lacks the political imagination and economic power to meaningfully challenge global capitalism, and that it merely represents an elite form of petite bourgeois consumption. While scholars have debated this issue feverishly, there is a dearth of empirical cases measuring whether or not actual local consumers understand their local consumption within the political and ethical frame of localism, leaving much of the discussion in the realm of esoteric theorizing. This study seeks to uncover whether or not local consumers interpret their local consumption habits within localism’s moral framework by using an original survey instrument to gather primary data, and conducting an exploratory quantitative inquiry.
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Turner, Bethany, and n/a. "Strategic translations: the Zapatistas from silence to dignity." University of Canberra. Creative Communication, 2004. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20051123.144212.
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This thesis demonstrates that the discursive strategies that characterise the political struggle of the Zapatista (EZLN) movement are produced in response to the political and economic realities of Mexico and the southeastern state of Chiapas. The EZLN�s intentionally ambiguous discourse of dignity epitomises these strategies. By deploying various incarnations of dignity to counter the Mexican Government�s strategic political manoeuvres, the EZLN destabilises the political, economic and social hegemonies of the nation. This destabilisation creates a space for the EZLN to suggest the possibility of an alternative political logic to the Mexican populace. However, the marginalised social location and ethnic diversity of the movement�s indigenous constituents impedes their ability to effect significant political change. This impediment is overcome when they coalesce around the politically advantageous subjectivity of indigenous Zapatistas and engage with the mestizo Subcomandante Marcos to produce the EZLN. The movement enacts a progressive coalitional politics that articulates radical political alternatives for Mexico through the strategic practice of translation. Thus, translation is posited as a powerful political practice for marginalised groups engaged in resistance struggles in the contemporary global conditions.
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Foster, John M. "Voter Ideology, Tax Exporting, and State and Local Tax Structure." UKnowledge, 2012. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/msppa_etds/2.
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State and local governments play an important role in financing and delivering public services in the United States. In 2008, state and local governments collected 57 percent of total federal, state, and local revenue (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, Tax Policy Center, 2009). The decentralization of fiscal responsibility has enabled a high degree of variation in state and local tax structures to emerge. This dissertation presents two empirical studies that extend the positive literature on state and local tax policy.
The extant literature contains evidence of a direct relationship between voter ideology and state and local tax progressivity. However, the measures of voter ideology that were used either did not capture differences in the intensity of voter liberalism across states, did not vary over time, or were beset with other limitations. This study uses the measure of average voter liberalism developed by Berry et al (1998). I find that average voter liberalism is significantly and positively-related to progressivity. However, the effect is small in magnitude. The ethnic congruence between the poor and the non-poor is positively-related to progressivity and the effects are economically significant. The degree of tension between ethnic groups, measured with an index of ethnic residential segregation, is significantly and inversely-related to progressivity. Both variables are statistically significant even with average voter liberalism held constant. It is possible that the ethnic demographic context reflects aspects of voters’ redistributive preferences that are not captured by measures of ideology.
Researchers have found relationships between states’ tax exporting capacities and the tax structures they adopt. Chapter 4 is the first study to examine the relationship between state tax exporting capacities and the business sales taxes. I find that the effective sales tax rate that governments impose on business purchases is not significantly influenced by a state’s capacity to export business taxes. It is, however, significantly and positively affected by a state’s ability to export taxes on households through the deductibility of state and local taxes under the federal income tax. A decrease in this offset is predicted to lead to an increase in the effective business sales tax rate, ceteris paribus.
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Beltz, Trevor Richard. "The Disappearing Middle Class: Implications for Politics and Public Policy." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2012. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/412.
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What does it mean to be middle class? The majority of Americans define themselves as members of the middle class, regardless of their wealth. The number of Americans that affiliate with the middle class alludes to the idea that it cannot be defined simply by level of income, number of assets, type of job, etc. The middle class is a lifestyle as much as it is a group of similarly minded people, just as it is a social construct as much as it is an economic construct. Yet as the masses fall away from the elite, and changes continue to reshape the occupational structure of the job market—due to globalization in a technological age; many have begun to question whether or not the middle class—and, by extension, the American way of life—will be able to survive. This thesis analyzes which Americans fall into the category of middle class and why. It observes the possible reasons the middle class is changing from the style portrayed through much of the 19th and 20th centuries. And lastly, this thesis poses possible solutions through public policy initiatives.
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Southard, Nicole. "The Socio-Political and Economic Causes of Natural Disasters." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1720.
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To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the power systems at play in any given society when these regions come into contact with a hazard event. Historic processes of isolation, oppression, and exploitation, combined with contemporary international power systems, interact in complex ways to affect different socioeconomic classes distinctly. The result is to create vulnerability and scarcity among the most defenseless communities. These processes affect a society’s ideological orientation and their cultural norms, empowering some while isolating others. When the resulting dynamic socio-political pressures and root causes come into contact with a natural hazard, a disaster is likely to follow due to the high vulnerability of certain groups and their inability to adapt as conditions change. In this light, the following discussion exposes the anthropogenic roots of natural disasters by conducting a detailed case analysis of natural disasters in Haiti, Ethiopia, and Nepal.
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Andersson, Malin. "Stories of Climate Change : Circular Transformation or Business as Usual? A Discourse Analysis of Climate Change Mitigation Policy in Three Swedish Municipalities." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Tema Miljöförändring, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-176669.
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This thesis identified dominant discourses in climate change mitigation policy in three Swedish municipalities using argumentative discourse analysis. It was explored how these discourses influence the potential for success in mitigating climate change. Other studies have identified several factors that are important when working with climate change mitigation in municipalities, for example, political leadership and organizational structure. However, studies have shown that discourse is also an influential factor since it sets the frame for what can be thought of, consequently influencing policies and actions, but this has not been studied as much at the municipal level in Sweden. Previous studies of environmental policy have shown the dominance of an ecological modernization discourse, where economic growth and environmental issues are combined to create a win-win. The results in this thesis show the dominance of a strong ecological modernization where the decoupling between economic growth and environmental problems, renewable energy and technology, a global justice perspective, and a focus on collaboration between stakeholders is central. A main conclusion is that the ecological modernization discourse risks obscuring potential solutions that are not related to the market or technological innovation. However, the inclusion of a diversity of actors and a focus on justice could potentially minimize this risk. Finally, emerging discourses around transformation and circular economy could be ways to problematize the taken-for-granted ecological modernization discourse. However, their potential depends on how these concepts are framed and what is included in them.Presentation was done online due to COVID-19
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Costello, Diane Ingrid. "A substantive examination of rural community resilience and transition - A social justice perspective of a civil society." Thesis, Curtin University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2360.
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It is well established that rural regional Australians have borne the brunt of globalization in terms of the adverse impacts caused by social and economic restructuring resulting from global, national and local forces. In response governments and communities have embraced sustainability and civil society for promoting local community action and responsibility for social, economic and environmental issues. This research focuses on community narratives about the social change processes as they engage the forces of neo-liberal policies. Applying a qualitative, grounded theoretical approach to data collection and analysis this study also adopts a multi-perspective, multi-disciplinary framework to gain more holistic, contextual understandings of community functioning and change. In echoing the principles of community psychology, the foundational, multidisciplinary concepts of sense of community, social capital, civil society, empowerment and conscientization have informed understandings of this communitys process and outcome towards transformational change. This study offers a critical reflection of transformational change in an effort to promote more peaceful, collaborate relationships between dominant and oppressed groups in expanding our understandings and solutions for community change. Identified by Newbrough (1992, 1995) as the Third Force Position, the ideals of political community are visibly expressed as they attempt to pursue transformational change towards a just and sustainable future for the community. However, while civil society has made a positive contribution, also apparent are the processes and outcomes which affect those most vulnerable. Those most powerless continue to suffer from exclusion, marginalization and as a result are denied access to vital resources to meet their needs.
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Deerfield, Amanda. "A Study of Corruption, Foreign Aid, and Economic Growth." UKnowledge, 2013. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/msppa_etds/5.
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Foreign aid donors increasingly demand that aid is used efficiently and effectively. This study examines the effect of corruption levels, measured by the Corruption Perceptions Index, within a recipient country on the levels of economic growth. A growing literature outlines the mechanisms through which corruption impedes economic growth and is summarized within. Additionally, as longevity gains may result from foreign aid but are not captured in economic growth, this study computes a variable called the Life Quality Indicator (LQI) that combines such gains with economic growth and examines corruption’s effect on LQI growth. As any windfall, foreign aid has been argued to exacerbate problems within corrupt countries—causing economic decline. This study develops an interaction of corruption levels and the ratio of aid receipts to GDP to examine the effects of this interaction on economic growth and LQI growth. Conducting a regression analysis shows the relationships between the interaction term and economic growth and the interaction term and LQI growth are negative, leading to policy recommendations that corrupt countries not receive foreign aid.
Using game theory, this study predicts the outcomes of interactions between aid recipients and donors during the Cold War, post-Cold War, and in the present. The present predicted outcomes suggest that recipients will be the winners because they are able to choose between receiving aid from emerging donors and from the Development Assistant Committee (DAC). Policy guidance to the aid community includes understanding that emerging donors may exert influence on aid recipients and programs to monitor this influence ensuring that it does not become exploitation may be necessary.
Finally, a case study of Russia is presented, highlighting its corruption and foreign aid receipts in the post-Soviet timeframe. A separate analysis is conducted on the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries to determine whether Russia’s corruption and foreign aid receipts caused lower levels of economic and LQI growth than that experienced by other FSU countries. While results do not show this, the negative relationship between the interaction term and economic and LQI growth is also found in this subset.
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Harple, Todd S., and tharple@hotmail com. "Controlling the Dragon: An ethno-historical analysis of social engagement among the Kamoro of South-West New Guinea (Indonesian Papua/Irian Jaya)." The Australian National University. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 2002. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20030401.173221.
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This thesis examines how the Kamoro (also known as the Mimika) people of the south-west coast of Papua (former Irian Jaya), Indonesia have adapted to major political and economic changes over a long history of interactions with outsiders. More specifically, it is an ethnohistorical analysis of Kamoro strategies of engagement dating back to the seventeenth century, but focusing on the twentieth century. Taking ethnohistory to most generally refer to the investigation of the social and cultural distinctiveness of historical consciousness, this thesis examines how perceptions and activities of the past shape interpretations of the present. Though this thesis privileges Kamoro perspectives, it juxtaposes them against broader ethnohistorical analyses of the outsiders with whom they have interacted. For the Kamoro, amoko-kwere, narratives about the ancestral (and eternal) cultural heroes, underlie indigenous modes of historical consciousness which are ultimately grounded in forms of social reciprocity. One key characteristic of the amoko-kwere is the incorporation of foreign elements and their reformulation as products of indigenous agency. As a result of this reinterpretation expectations are raised concerning the exchange of foreign material wealth and abilities, both classified in the Kamoro language as kata. Foreign withholding of kata emerges as a dominant theme in amoko-kwere and is interpreted as theft, ultimately establishing relationships of negative reciprocity between the Kamoro and the powerful outsiders. These feelings are mirrored in contemporary Kamoro conceptions of their relationships with the Indonesian State and the massive PT Freeport Indonesia Mining Company who use a significant amount of Kamoro land for deposition of mining waste (tailings) and for the development of State and company infrastructure.
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Costello, Diane Ingrid. "A substantive examination of rural community resilience and transition - A social justice perspective of a civil society." Curtin University of Technology, School of Psychology, 2007. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=17603.
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It is well established that rural regional Australians have borne the brunt of globalization in terms of the adverse impacts caused by social and economic restructuring resulting from global, national and local forces. In response governments and communities have embraced sustainability and civil society for promoting local community action and responsibility for social, economic and environmental issues. This research focuses on community narratives about the social change processes as they engage the forces of neo-liberal policies. Applying a qualitative, grounded theoretical approach to data collection and analysis this study also adopts a multi-perspective, multi-disciplinary framework to gain more holistic, contextual understandings of community functioning and change. In echoing the principles of community psychology, the foundational, multidisciplinary concepts of sense of community, social capital, civil society, empowerment and conscientization have informed understandings of this communitys process and outcome towards transformational change. This study offers a critical reflection of transformational change in an effort to promote more peaceful, collaborate relationships between dominant and oppressed groups in expanding our understandings and solutions for community change. Identified by Newbrough (1992, 1995) as the Third Force Position, the ideals of political community are visibly expressed as they attempt to pursue transformational change towards a just and sustainable future for the community. However, while civil society has made a positive contribution, also apparent are the processes and outcomes which affect those most vulnerable. Those most powerless continue to suffer from exclusion, marginalization and as a result are denied access to vital resources to meet their needs.
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Howarth, Nicholas A. A. "The political economy of technological change, energy and climate change." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:96957dc1-2bc8-466f-8963-4a7edbc0569c.
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This thesis sets out to explore some of the key dimensions in the process of socio-technological change inherent in the shift to a low carbon economy. This is done in two parts, the first focusing on theory, the second, empirical case studies. Out of the diversity of interactions between actors, technologies, and policies surrounding this process, one key question emerges: can societies really shift the structure of their economies so fundamentally to achieve a low carbon future within a reasonable timeframe? Chapter One develops an integrated approach to economic and political change to interrogate this question. This synthesizes a review of literature (Part One) examining the role of technology within some of the main theories of economic change in the social sciences. Two broad paradigms are distinguished. First, a paradigm based around the notion of equilibrium, notably the standard welfare approach of neoclassical economics; and secondly, an evolutionary paradigm, which views the economy as a complex adaptive system – such as exemplified by theories of path dependency. This theoretical background provides a broad narrative to frame and inform Part Two of the thesis. First in Chapter Four, socio-technical change is investigated in the context of the diffusion of energy efficient lighting in Germany. This study investigates the relationships between human behaviour and attitudes, lamp technology and the evolving nature of institutions, to provide a framework with which to consider the contentious issue of individual freedom versus government control in the politics of change to lower-carbon emissions. In Chapter Five, the case for the creation of a market for CO2 pollution permits is developed. In making this case, the strengths and weaknesses of emissions trading are compared and contrasted with other policy instruments and the broader political economy of the various policy options discussed. Chapter 6 builds on this to examine the political economy of implementing an emissions trading scheme in Australia and the impact the Kyoto Protocol has had on domestic politics and GHG mitigation. Chapter Seven continues with the theme of building ‘a political ecology of the state’ by investigating the politics and economics of greenhouse gas mitigation in Russia. Finally, Chapter Eight recapitulates the aims, nature and conclusions of this research and draws out its implications for policy as well as mapping out some areas for further research. In particular, the need to bring a greater sense of politics back into the study of the economy is highlighted as a vital part of building a renewed, more sustainable economic paradigm in the wake of the financial crisis and, as a way of strengthening the connection between social values and market outcomes.
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Greer, Robert. "THREE ESSAYS ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEBT." UKnowledge, 2013. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/msppa_etds/6.
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The local government tax-exempt debt market is a growing, and complex, sector of public finance. As local governments turn to debt financing the factors that contribute to interest costs of that debt have become important considerations for local government officials and politicians. Governance at the local level involves a network of overlapping governments some of which share a tax base. This system of overlapping governments that share a tax base are subject to externalities that arise from taxation, expenditures, and debt. These externalities are usually analyzed in terms of tax or expenditure reactions, but there are implications for local government debt as well. For example, it can be shown that overlapping governments that share a tax base and issue debt can increase the interest costs paid on bonds by a higher level government. Further complicating the debt situation of local governments is the prevalence of a variety of special districts with the authority to issue tax-exempt debt. These special districts may have the authority to issue debt, but little is known about their financing processes. By comparing how different types of government approach the credit rating process this dissertation compares risk assessment of traditional municipalities and special districts. Through this comparison similarities and differences in the credit rating process across types of local governments can be identified. To explore these issues of local government debt several advanced econometric techniques are used to estimate various models.
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Tortola, Pier Domenico. "Federalism, the state and the city : explaining urban policy institutions in the United States and in the European Union." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c7fc59b8-474d-45db-b5ae-e1c95f2e44fc.
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This thesis contributes to the growing EU-US literature by comparing and explaining the evolution of urban policy in these two federal systems. The thesis begins with a puzzle: after introducing two similar and equally short-lived regeneration schemes—Model Cities (MC) (1967) and URBAN (1994)—the US and the EU followed different paths: the former replaced MC with the durable Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) in 1974, while the latter ended urban policy by ‘mainstreaming’ URBAN in its regional policy in 2006. To solve the puzzle I formulate a two-part argument: first, I explain the similarities between MC and URBAN as resulting from three factors: a favourable political context, holistic urban policy ideas, and centre-periphery mistrust. I then explain subsequent trajectories by looking at the interplay of policy and politico-constitutional institutions. While both MC and URBAN were unable to ‘stick’ because of their inherent weaknesses, the result of their demise depended on the existence of a federal ‘city welfare’ state. In the US, the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) embodied this state, and channelled Nixon’s attacks on MC into the creation of the structurally stronger CDBG. In the EU, conversely, DG Regio could not provide a comparable anchor for urban policy: when URBAN was attacked by regions and cities, the DG just reverted to its ‘business as usual’ by mainstreaming the programme. I test my argument with a macro-historical comparison of the two cases and four in-depth city studies—Arlington, VA and Baltimore, MD on the US side, and Bristol, UK and Pescara, Italy on the EU side—aimed at analysing micro-level institutional dynamics. In both parts of the study I use a wide range of sources: secondary and grey literature, statistical sources and, especially, archival material and elite interviews. At both levels of analysis the test confirms my argument.
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Jussila, Hammes Johanna. "Essays on the political economy of land use change /." Göteborg : Dept. of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University, 2005. http://www.handels.gu.se/epc/archive/00004451/01/Jussila%5Favhandl.pdf.
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Hammes, Johanna Jussila. "Essays on the political economy of land use change." Göteborg : Kompendiet, 2005. http://www.gbv.de/dms/sub-hamburg/507365801.pdf.
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Antwi-Ansorge, Nana Akua. "Ethnic mobilisation and the Liberian civil war (1989-2003)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9d7a54b2-e2e9-4f72-aad4-2301e9cf2def.
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This thesis examines the relationship between ethnicity and violent group mobilisation in Liberia’s civil war (1989-2003). It focuses on Gio, Mano and Mandingo mobilisation to investigate how and why internal dynamics about moral norms and expectations motivated leadership calls for violence and ethnic support. Much of the existing literature interprets popular involvement in violent group mobilisation on the Upper Guinea Coast as a youth rebellion against gerontocracy. I argue that such an approach is incomplete in the Liberian case, and does not account for questions of ethnic mobilisation and the participation of groups such as the Gio, Mano and Mandingo. At the onset of hostilities, civilians in Liberia were not primarily mobilised to fight based on their age, but rather as members of ethnic communities whose membership included different age groups. I explore constructivist approaches to ethnicity to analyse mobilisation for war as the collective 'self-defence' of ethnic groups qua moral communities. In the prelude to the outbreak of civil war, inter-ethnic inequalities of access to the state and economic resources became reconfigured. Ethnic groups—as moral communities—experienced external 'victimisation' and a sense of internal dissolution, or threatened dissolution. In particular, the understanding of internal reciprocal relations between patrons and clients within ethnic groups was undermined. Internal arguments about morality, personal responsibility, social accountability/justice, increased the pressure on excluded elites and thus incentivised them to pursue violent political strategies. Mobilisation took on an ethnic form mainly because individuals believed that they were fighting to protect the moral communities that generate esteem and ground understandings of good citizenship. Therefore, ethnic participation in the Liberian countryside differed from the model peasant rebellion that seeks to overthrow the feudal elites. Rather than a revolution of the social order, individuals regarded themselves as protecting an extant ethnic order that provided rights and distributed resources. Even though some individuals fought for political power and resources, and external actors facilitated group organisation through the provision of logistical support, the violence was also an expression of bottom-up moral community crisis and an attempt by politico-military elites to keep their reputation and enforce unity.
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Sudar, Petar. "The political economy of accounting change : the case of Albania." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2007. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21673.
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The change of accounting system has been a part of Albania's transition from the centrally planned to market economy that started in the early 1990s. Accounting changes in Albania however, have not been documented and study. Furthermore, the review of literature on accounting in developing countries and that on accounting developments in Central and Eastern Europe of the 1990s evidences the need for critically studying the development and role of accounting in the economic and social context of countries such as Albania. By utilising Perera's contingency based approach this study thus analyses accounting developments in Albania during the period 1992 - 2002. In a number of important respects Albania has differed from all or almost all the other Central and East European economies in transition and other developing countries. It has differed in its starting point of the reform, in its mode of adjustment, and in its reform outcomes. It has differed in its successes and in its failures. Nevertheless, the development of accounting in Albania has faced challenges similar to those in other Central and East European transitional economies and developing countries. The prevailing accounting philosophy in Albania's legislation on accounting has been French-inspired. This has meant that the range of actual and potential conflicts and confusions between a system based on legal formalities and tax domination of accounting and the broader International Accounting Standards spirit has been widening. Furthermore, while amendments to accounting legislation have been relatively quick to take place, a slow pace of change has characterized the functioning of Albania's accounting institutions - policy and decision-making bodies and professional associations. This has affected the proper functioning of the system of accounting which has been an integral part of Albania's financial infrastructure. Using a qualitative case study research and employing interviewing technique, this thesis ascertains the contribution that certain changes could make to the functioning of Albania's accounting system, and to the outcome of the activities of international governmental and financial institutions.
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Schmidt, Oscar. "The political economy of agrarian change in south-east Turkey." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22551.
Full textAbstract:
Die vorliegende Studie ist ein Beitrag zu einem wachsenden Bestand zeitgenössischer wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten zur politischen Ökonomie staatlich getriebenen Agrarwandels. Arbeiten zum Thema fragen, wie und warum Agrarwandel stattfindet und welches „Ergebnis“ dieser Wandel vor dem Hintergrund der vielfältigen sozialen und ökologischen Funktionen der Landwirtschaft haben sollte.
Die Studie leistet zwei wesentliche Beiträge. Der erste Beitrag ist eine vertiefte empirische Fallstudie zur politischen Ökonomie des agrarischen Wandels auf der Kızıltepe Ebene inmitten der stark verarmten und notorisch gewalttätigen Region Südostanatolien. Der zweite Beitrag liegt in einer Integration von empirischen und theoretischen Arbeiten verschiedener Denkschulen und Disziplinen. Statt in epistemischen Silos zu verharren, wird hier argumentiert, dass die Integration verschiedener Perspektiven vielversprechend und notwendig ist, um die Forschung über den Agrarwandel voranzutreiben. Dies erfolgt zunächst durch eine bewusste und systematische Nutzung von Literatur aus verschiedenen Denkschulen und Wissenschaftsbereichen. Zweitens wird auf der Grundlage des von Hagedorn (2008) entwickelten Institutions of Sustainability Frameworks ein integrativer theoriebasierter Analyserahmen vorgestellt. Wichtige Bausteine hierfür ergeben sich aus Ansätzen der neoklassischen Agrarökonomie, der marxistischen Politischen Ökonomie und ökonomischer Theorien institutionellen Wandels.
Die Fallstudie zeigt, wie staatliche Politik zu einer grundlegenden Veränderung der Agrarproduktion im Sinne einer deutlichen Intensivierung und Produktivitätssteigerung geführt hat. Gleichzeitig hat der Agrarwandel, im Widerspruch zu offiziellen Verlautbarungen zu schwerwiegenden negativen Auswirkungen auf die sozialen Produktions- und Reproduktionsbeziehungen und zu massiven ökologischen Problemen geführt. Der Agrarwandel in Kızıltepe erscheint so vor allem als Negativbeispiel staatlicher Einflussnahme.This study is a contribution to a growing body of research on the political economy of state-driven agrarian change. Scholarship on agrarian change commonly asks how, why and to what end agrarian change occurs. Related to this is an on-going debate about what “kind of agriculture” humanity should strive for to fulfil multiple social purposes and meet ecological needs today and in the future. The study’s contribution is twofold. First, it provides an in-depth empirical case study on the political economy of agrarian change on south-eastern Turkey’s Kızıltepe plain. The plain is located amidst Turkey’s impoverished and violence-stricken South-east Anatolia region, which has been at the centre of major development efforts since the late 1990s. Second, the study seeks to integrate empirical and theoretical works from different epistemic communities. In stressing the need to avoid the common tendency of remaining within epistemic silos, the study argues that integrating these different perspectives is both promising and necessary to further advance research on agrarian change. Using Hagedorn’s (2008) Institutions of Sustainability framework as a point of departure, an integrative theory-based analytical framework is introduced. Important building blocks are derived from neoclassical agricultural economics, Marxist agrarian political economy and economic theories of institutional change. The case study shows how the state’s policies have resulted in a fundamental change to the modus operandi of local agricultural production. State intervention has been highly successful in catalysing intensification and productivity. Yet, contrary to official claims, agrarian change has not yielded prosperity and growth across all social strata. Intensified agriculture has led to severe repercussions for the social relations of production and reproduction and major ecological problems. Agrarian change in Kızıltepe is thus much less a success story, but rather a cautionary tale.
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Dekeyser, Koen. "Food systems change under large agricultural investments in Kenya and Mozambique." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/72116.
Full textAbstract:
The goal of this dissertation is to explore the effects of large agricultural investments on food systems change around Nanyuki, Kenya and in the Nacala corridor, Mozambique. Specifically, the effects of these investments on land, the food supply chains, food environments, and food consumption were studied. In Africa, food systems already change against a backdrop of global food system pressures, such as the inroads of supermarkets, and local drivers, such as demographic and economic changes. The large agricultural investments likely intersect with these changes, but if the investments amplify them, and to what degree, is less known. Methodologically, a postpositivist mixed-methods approach was used for an instrumental case study design with study areas in Kenya and Mozambique. Multiple data collection techniques were used, including (un)structured interviews and a household survey, and data were analysed through inductive thematic analysis and between-groups analysis. The results show myriad effects of the investments to food systems, including to land, self-production, agricultural engagement, food distribution and food environments. Overall, the investments linked with more modern food systems that were characterised by lower self-production and higher diet diversity. This change occurred through ‘hybrid modernity’ rather than linear modernity as certain traditional dynamics strengthen alongside modernisation processes. In the end, more inclusive food governance arrangements, such as food sovereignty, can counteract some of the adverse effects of large agricultural investments.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019.
Political Sciences
PhD
Unrestricted
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Taylor, Mark Zachary. "The political economy of technological innovation : a change in the debate." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35289.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-82).
Why are some countries more technologically innovative than others? The dominant explanation amongst political-economists is that domestic institutions determine national innovation rates. However, after decades of research, the empirical evidence for this relationship remains equivocal. There are simply many countries with "good" institutions that do not innovate at the technological frontier, and many countries with "bad" institutions that have nonetheless built impressive records of technological progress. Therefore, in this dissertation, in order to probe the sources of variance in national innovation rates, I analyze quantitative data on innovation, various domestic institutions, and four types of international relationships. First, I review the National Innovation Systems literature. Second, I test the Varieties of Capitalism theory of innovation. Third, I ask whether decentralized states are better at technological innovation than centralized states. In each case, I find that there exists little empirical evidence for an aggregate relationship between domestic institutions and technological innovation. That is, although a specific domestic institution or policy might appear to explain a particular instance of innovation, they fail to explain national innovation rates across time and space.
(cont.) However, the empirical evidence does suggest that a country's international relationships may be the missing piece to the national innovation rate puzzle. More specifically, the evidence presented in this dissertation suggests that certain kinds of international relationships (e.g. capital goods imports, foreign direct investment, educational exchanges) do affect national innovation rates in the aggregate. And countries which have these kinds of relationships with the lead innovating nations tend to become more innovative than states which do not, almost regardless of their domestic institutions. In other words, explaining national innovation rates may not be so much a domestic institutions story as it is an international story. My empirical evidence includes data on simple patent counts, patents weighted by forward citations, science and engineering publications (both simple counts and citations-weighted), and high-technology exports.
by Mark Zachary Taylor.
Ph.D.
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Souza, Menezes Aline Maria. "Essays on empirical political economy." Thesis, University of Essex, 2016. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/20066/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis studies three channels through which elections and, ultimately, public policy may be interrelated: new media, electoral systems and vote motivation. The media has the fundamental role of providing political information to voters. New media such as the Internet brought about an enormous shift in the availability of political information during elections. Exploiting the timing and geographic variation in the introduction of Internet in Brazil, in the first chapter, I show that municipalities with higher Internet penetration voted more often in candidates who faced legal restrictions for advertising in traditional media. Electoral systems, in turn, have specific features that, in theory, may allow voters to select better politicians by providing more information about candidates and other voters' preferences. In the second chapter, using the discontinuous allocation of single- and dual-ballot electoral rules across mayoral elections in Brazil, I compare the quality of politicians fielded and elected in these systems. In general, dual-ballot candidates from major parties are more politically experienced. This experience may be translated into unobserved political skills that are required to deal with the more competitive electoral process, that, by itself, punishes female candidates, to the extent to which women's participation in politics has been historically low. No differences in performance are observed, except in the attraction of discretionary resources by dual-ballot mayors eligible for reelection, but only in election years. Finally, in the third chapter, I use a quasi-naturally generated group of voters with differential political information and voting motivations to show that politicians extract more rents in municipalities where they know a number of voters is not directly interested in public goods and do not have readily access to local sources of information.
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Luke, David J. "INCREASING INCLUSION: THE PURSUIT OF RACIAL DIVERSITY IN THREE HISTORICALLY WHITE UNIVERSITIES IN KENTUCKY, MICHIGAN, AND ONTARIO FROM 2000 TO 2012." UKnowledge, 2018. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/sociology_etds/36.
Full textAbstract:
The University of Kentucky (UK) and University of Michigan (UM) present very different patterns in terms of black student enrollments and completions from 2000 to 2012 because of a structural explanation, a qualitative explanation, and a statistical explanation. Unfortunately, the patterns at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) are partial due to a lack of data.
First, the structural explanation is that UK, as a university in the state of Kentucky, was under a mandate from the U.S. Department of Education to desegregate because they were in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (KCPE) gave specific goals related to black student enrollment and completions. Substantial progress was made from 2000-2012, primarily during the time when Lee Todd Jr. created the President’s Commission on Diversity (PCD) which implemented strategies to achieve the goals. While the same federal laws applied to UM, as a northern state they were not under the same federal scrutiny regarding desegregation. UM was taking an aggressive approach with regards to increasing black student enrollments and completions under president Lee Bollinger, and he passed the process along to Mary Sue Coleman, but UM was faced with a negative response and resistance in terms of lawsuits in 2003 and legislation in 2006 (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative or MCRI) which banned the consideration of race for all public colleges and universities in admissions. UM is highly selective, and a legacy of social movements by black students was stronger at UM than at UK, which may have increased media scrutiny and negative reactions. Essentially, UK’s success was based on an externally monitored topdown approach with little media scrutiny.
Second, archived university websites from 2000-2012 and interviews with 21 key informants at the three universities showed a difference in the way diversity initiatives were framed. The Kentucky Plan, the desegregation mandate, had concrete and explicit language in terms of requirements related to black student enrollment at UK. The implementation at UK, although sometimes using broad and general language, was accountable to the explicit requirements of the mandate and black student enrollments and completions increased during that timeframe. At UM, during the Mary Sue Coleman administration, what began as explicit policy under Lee Bollinger became more general and vague policy after the 2003 lawsuits and 2006 legislation banning affirmative action, corresponding with a decline in black student enrollments and completions. Under Coleman, some have questioned whether the legislation was truly an obstacle, or an excuse to rationalize inaction with regards to black student enrollments and completions as they declined. In Ontario the language was typically general, and race tended to be absent, with diversity often conceptualized in terms of internationalizing the student body.
Third, the statistical explanation is based on the cross-sectional examination of available National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data available for the universities in both states in the U.S.A. in 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2012. Before 2006, state-level politics do not explain enrollments or completions. In 2009 and 2012, a variable representing the MCRI for four-year public universities in Michigan is significant in explaining decreased black student completions, however it was not significant for enrollments. This applies not only to two universities, it applies to the four-year public institutions in both states, but it does not apply to community colleges since they are primarily open enrollment.
Finally, the cross-national comparison between the U.S. and Canada does not have concrete data because UWO, like all Canadian universities from 2000-2012, did not collect student data based on race. However, interview data and the framing of policies in this study shows significant problems with racial incidents and low black student enrollments. So under the Canadian multiculturalist regime, the common neglect of collecting racial statistics suggest the possibility of a multiculturalist parallel to colorblind racism that I call racism-blind multiculturalism.
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Telek, Ádám. "Three Essays on Political Economy." Doctoral thesis, Universidad de Alicante, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10045/80348.
Full textAbstract:
El estudio de la relación entre el individuo y el grupo tiene una larga historia en las ciencias sociales. Aún si el impulsor principal de las acciones de la gente es perseguir sus propios objetivos, los seres humanos también cohabitamos, colaboramos y cuidamos unos de otros. Para armonizar los objetivos personales con los intereses del grupo, creamos normas y reglas. Estas normas y reglas afectan nuestras preferencias, gustos y decisiones. Las personas también pueden tener una influencia más directa entre sí: por ejemplo imitamos, enseñamos y aprendemos unos de otros. En la investigación del comportamiento político -- donde las decisiones pueden tener un efecto en el entorno social de quien toma las decisiones -- estas normas, reglas e influencias personales reciben cada vez más atención. Este nuevo enfoque no se centra solo en las características individuales, sino también en la relación y las interacciones de estos individuos. Para manejar la variedad casi infinita de las relaciones e interacciones, los investigadores necesitan agruparlas en estructuras sociales. En mi tesis doctoral, estudio el papel de dos estructuras sociales en la política. La primera estructura es la red social. La red social es la colección de todos los enlaces sociales bilaterales en un grupo. La segunda estructura que estudio en mi tesis es la facción política. Las facciones son grupos jerárquicos de políticos que trabajan juntos para obtener poder político. Mi tesis está dividida en tres capítulos principales. El primer capítulo es un trabajo empírico que mide la importancia de la posición (en la red social) de los políticos en su carrera pública. El segundo capítulo introduce en primer lugar un modelo nuevo de colaboración dentro de las facciones políticas, y luego contrasta empíricamente algunas de las principales predicciones del modelo. El tercer capítulo modela cómo se expanden las influencias en una red social y introduce una manera simple de encontrar el actor clave de una red política en una clase especifico de redes. El Capítulo 1 incluye mi trabajo de investigación titulado “Marrying the Right One -- Evidence on Social Network Effects in Politics from the Venetian Republic”. En este capítulo mido el efecto de las redes sociales en el desarrollo de la carrera de los políticos. Con este fin, construyo una base de datos que contiene información sobre la red social de todo el electorado de una nación soberana, la República de Venecia del siglo XV. También identifico las carreras de 2.500 políticos casados del período entre 1400 y 1524. Analizando este panel de datos, encuentro evidencia empírica de que casarse con la hija de un padre más central en la red mejora significativamente las perspectivas de carrera futura en la política del marido. Además, demuestro que este efecto es independiente de otras características de cualquiera de las dos familias, como el prestigio histórico, la riqueza o el poder de voto (tamaño de la familia), y no está sesgado por matrimonios selectivos. Además, encuentro que el efecto de la red es acumulativo (se disfrutan las ventajas de un buen matrimonio durante un período prolongado) y que el efecto es más fuerte durante periodos políticamente o económicamente difíciles (como en una guerra defensiva). El Capítulo 2 está basado en mi trabajo de investigación titulado “Politics Behind the Curtain -- A Model of Endogenous Factional Competition and Evidence from the Venetian Republic”. Este capítulo presenta un nuevo modelo de competición política entre facciones donde el poder político de una facción es endógeno. En el modelo, todos los políticos son miembros de una facción y la competencia (por una promoción) ocurre en dos etapas. Primero, los políticos compiten por el apoyo de su facción. Segundo, las facciones compiten para ganar la promoción para sus candidatos. El éxito del concurso en la segunda etapa es endógeno: depende del número y la posición de todos los afiliados de la facción. La primera contribución de este trabajo de investigación es que describe las fuerzas que facilitan la colaboración de los políticos y la aparición de facciones. El segundo es que revela la naturaleza ambivalente de la competencia política en sistemas dominados por facciones políticos: las facciones más grandes son más fuertes, pero sus miembros también se enfrentan a una competencia más fuerte dentro de las facciones. Usando datos de la República de Venecia, estimo los coeficientes del modelo teórico. La estimación separa los dos canales de efectos del tamaño (de la facción): el canal de competencia interna y el canal de poder de facción. Finalmente, capítulo 3 sigue el trabajo de investigación titulado “Influences and Elections in a Political Network”. En este capítulo, desarrollo un modelo nuevo de lobbying y votación en una red social. Los jugadores en la red son votantes y candidatos potenciales al mismo tiempo. Los votantes prefieren al candidato al que puedan influir más, y el poder de presión está determinado por la posición relativa del votante y el candidato en la red social. En este modelo, las preferencias muestran algunas regularidades que son suficientes para demostrar que hay uno (o dos vecinos) candidato(s) de Condorcet en cualquier red en árbol, y que el(los) tiene(n) la mayor centralidad de proximidad en la red. Además, las preferencias tienen un solo pico en las redes en árbol, por lo que en una red en cadena (o línea) el teorema del votante mediano es aplicable. Muestro que la centralidad de proximidad supera a otras medidas de centralidad frecuentemente utilizadas (centralidad de vector propio, centralidad de intermediación) en ciertas redes. Finalmente, comparo mi modelo principal con el modelo de Cruz et al. 2017 donde los votantes tienen sesgos ideológicos: el modelo de Cruz et al. 2017 proporciona resultados más generales, pero mi modelo se basa en supuestos mejor alineados con las evidencias empíricas.
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Sánchez, Ibrahim Jesús. "Essays on Political Economy." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/672064.
Full textAbstract:
Aquesta tesi combina dades històriques amb teoria de jocs per a intentar entendre millor la relació entre els partits polítics i l'opinió publica. En primer lloc, estudi les dinàmiques de les qüestions socials. Demostro que les qüestions socials (per exemple, aquelles relacionades amb els drets de les dones i les minories, o les qüestions racials) tendeixen a seguir patrons de comportament, tant en termes de partits com d'opinió pública. Després, basant-me en aquests patrons, proposo una nova forma de modelar el comportament dels partits i del que ciutadans. A través de tres articles teòrics, aprofundeixo en la interacció dinàmica entre partits polítics i opinió pública al voltant d'una qüestió política específica. Els meus resultats llancen llum sobre què incentiva els partits a donar suport polítiques oposades. També ajuden a entendre millor diversos fenòmens que s'han observat en la realitat, com ara el fet que els partits polítics semblen estar més polaritzats que els propis ciutadans.Esta tesis combina datos históricos con teoría de juegos para intentar entender mejor la relación entre los partidos políticos y la opinión publica. En primer lugar, estudio las dinámicas de las cuestiones sociales. Demuestro que las cuestiones sociales (por ejemplo, aquellas relacionadas con los derechos de las mujeres y las minorías, o las cuestiones raciales) tienden a seguir patrones de comportamiento, tanto en términos de partidos como de opinión pública. Después, basándome en estos patrones, propongo una nueva forma de modelar el comportamiento de los partidos y de lo ciudadanos. A través de tres artículos teóricos, profundizo en la interacción dinámica entre partidos políticos y opinión pública alrededor de una cuestión política específica. Mis resultados arrojan luz sobre qué incentiva a los partidos a apoyar políticas opuestas. También ayudan a entender mejor diversos fenómenos que se han observado en la realidad, como por ejemplo el hecho de que los partidos políticos parecen estar más polarizados que los propios ciudadanos.
This thesis combines historical data with game theory to better understand the relationship between political parties and mass behaviour. First, I study the dynamics of social issues. I show that social issues (e.g, issues related to women's and minority rights, or racial issues) tend to follow behavioural patterns, both in terms of parties'and citizens' behaviour. Then, based on these patterns, I propose a new way of modelling parties' and citizens' behaviour. Through three theoretical papers, I deepen the dynamic interplay between political parties and the public opinion around a specific issue. My results shed light on what makes political parties be confronted with respect to an issue. They also help understanding some observed phenomena related to this interplay, like the sorting phenomenon or the question of why political parties seem to be more polarized than citizens.