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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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University of Massachusetts Amherst

Theses/Dissertations

Sociology

Neoliberalism

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Collective Action As Relationship In Late Modernity: Animal Advocacy In A Repressive Political Climate, Catherine M. Wilson Nov 2017

Collective Action As Relationship In Late Modernity: Animal Advocacy In A Repressive Political Climate, Catherine M. Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the mid 1990s, in the United States, social regulation and activity with regard to animal care and the nature of acceptable human-animal relationships has changed remarkably rapidly, even as animal rights activism has become less prominent. Utilizing extensive ethnographic, artifactual, and interview data, this dissertation interrogates some of the relational processes that have contributed to these changes. After first sketching a brief history of animal advocacy discourses in the U.S., In Chapter Four, I document a shift from disruptive to productive strategies in animal advocacy. I argue that two important contributing factors to this shift were anti-terrorism legislation that …


Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott Mar 2017

Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, …


The Colonial Legacies Of “Fiesta Island”: A Critical Study Of Live-Music Events Production In Puerto Rico, Anilyn Diaz Nov 2014

The Colonial Legacies Of “Fiesta Island”: A Critical Study Of Live-Music Events Production In Puerto Rico, Anilyn Diaz

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the historical relationship between the state and national culture in Puerto Rico as seen through the case of the entertainment industry, specifically live-music events production. The dissertation is located within two bodies of literature: critical post-colonial cultural studies of cultural industries and cultural policy, and cultural approaches to scholarship on collective action and state-civil society relationships in neoliberal contexts. The research design includes archival work and analysis of organizational material, supported by a cultural ethnography approach to semi-structured informant interviews and group interviews. The interviews focus on the historical development, cultural legacies, and practices of the entertainment …


Organizing Markets: The Structuring Of Neoliberalism In The U.S. Airline Industry, Dustin Robert Avent-Holt Sep 2012

Organizing Markets: The Structuring Of Neoliberalism In The U.S. Airline Industry, Dustin Robert Avent-Holt

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the emergence of neoliberalism through an historical analysis of the evolution of the U.S airline industry. In 1938 the basic economic activities of U.S. airlines were placed under the regulatory oversight and control of the Civil Aeronautics Board. This institution of "regulated competition" persisted largely unquestioned until the economic crisis of the 1970s. Out of this crisis the Airline Deregulation Act was passed in 1978, eliminating most of these economic controls. Based on analysis of Congressional hearings, a key industry trade press (Air Transport World), the general business press, and financial and labor market data on the …