Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Politics and Social Change Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Politics and Social Change

Capitalist Organizing And Organizations: The Case Of The American Petroleum Institute, Elizabeth Ashley East Dec 2017

Capitalist Organizing And Organizations: The Case Of The American Petroleum Institute, Elizabeth Ashley East

Doctoral Dissertations

Sociologists have underestimated the importance and power of organizations established to unify capitalist firms and interests. Existing research on trade associations tends to take one of two approaches, either atheoretical studies developing typologies of trade association activities or cultural sociological approaches overemphasizing the cultural significance of these organizations for business communities. Utilizing Marxian organizational theory, this dissertation conceptualizes trade associations as inherently capitalist organizations created to build and maintain the interests of the capitalist class. This perspective is applied to build an historical sociological case study of the formation and subsequent activities of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest …


Automation, Work, And Ideology: The Next Industrial Revolution And The Transformation Of "Labor", Anthony Jack Knowles Ii Dec 2017

Automation, Work, And Ideology: The Next Industrial Revolution And The Transformation Of "Labor", Anthony Jack Knowles Ii

Masters Theses

Over the last several decades, scholars and commentators from a variety of different fields, expertise, and ideological positions have written on automation technologies and their potential to cause technological unemployment. As a sociological analysis and critical examination of how experts ideologically frame these issues, this thesis demonstrates that ideology plays a crucial role in the revived debate over automation and technological displacement. Weberian ideal types are developed to demonstrate how three major ideological positions—liberal, conservative, and radical—approach and frame the link between automation, technological displacement, and the potential for technological unemployment. The qualitative tools of ideal type construction and theme …


The Three Dimensions Of Political Action In United States Democracy: Corporations As Political Actors And "Franchise Governments", Steven Alfonso Panageotou Dec 2017

The Three Dimensions Of Political Action In United States Democracy: Corporations As Political Actors And "Franchise Governments", Steven Alfonso Panageotou

Doctoral Dissertations

A tension has persisted in the United States between the principles of democracy and the capitalist economy. At its core, democracy refers to the ideal that people should govern themselves. Democracy is indeterminate, its future open. But the open-ended principle of democracy collides with the authoritarian nature of corporations that centralize power within bureaucratic institutions designed to rationalize and augment capital accumulation. The purpose of this dissertation is to explain why democratic aspirations to realize a system of ‘rule by the people’ have been confounded by corporate political power. To do so, I delineate how polit ical theorists have envisioned …


Mass Migration: Examining Factors That Contribute To An Individual's Propensity To Migrate, Bryson A. Lype May 2017

Mass Migration: Examining Factors That Contribute To An Individual's Propensity To Migrate, Bryson A. Lype

Haslam Scholars Projects

No abstract provided.