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Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Downloading Is Killing Music: Napster And The Recording Industry’S Piracy Panic Narrative, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

Beginning in the late 1990s and the arrival of the file-sharing program Napster, the recording industry used a “piracy panic narrative” in an attempt not only to prevent file-sharing, but also, to change the basic parameters of copyright law. In this piracy panic narrative, major record labels and their representative trade associations made the argument that file-sharing is piracy, piracy is stealing, and this stealing hurts recording artists. In this paper, I argue that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) used this narrative in the United States to change public opinion on file-sharing with the ultimate goal of changing …

Independent Music After Metallica V. Napster, Inc.: Seeking Liberation In The Music Streaming Simulacrum, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

In this brief paper, I note the ways in which being a musician has changed in the aftermath of the digital downloading and file-sharing developed by Napster pioneer Shawn Fanning, through the lens of the music streaming simulacrum—my term for what has unfolded since. I contrast the present environment with the potential that emerged with this technology. I theorize the music streaming simulacrum as opaque, flat, and hegemonic—a parody of both industry and culture that incomprehensible by a single human being, militates against deeper connectivity between artist and listener, and exerts outsized power over human behavior and decision-making in a …

Convenience Begets Capitalism, Jörgen Behrendtz

Fast Capitalism

This is a short polemical piece, and does not have an abstract as such.

The Artificiality Of Digital Scarcity: Contradictions Between Code, Law, Norms, And Value(S), Anthony Jack Knowles

Fast Capitalism

The rise and fall of Napster represented a major turning point in the history of the internet as it simultaneously paved the way for peer-to-peer filesharing as well as ushered in a backlash from incumbent media companies backed by an army of lawyers. This essay grapples with the ramifications of this struggle against filesharing and piracy that forever changed the internet. Much of how and why the internet is structured as it is can be explained through recognizing that this contradictory state of affairs is due to the inherent properties of the internet and digital files when "forced" to fit …

Napster "Freedom" At Northeastern University: A Distanced Ethnography, Marcus Breen

Fast Capitalism

This article offers a critical first hand account, from an academic at Northeastern University after Napster's creator Sean Fanniong left the campus in 1999. Reflecting on the impact of Fanning on the campus, drawing on the history of community computer innovation in Boston as a means of activism, the article identifies through Marx, the way monopoly capitalism destroyed Napster's capacity for free music culture. The impact of Intellectual Property law in shutting down digital innovations such as Napster, is considered for the impact it had on the ideals of the liberal university in the United States.

Exploring China’S Belt And Road Initiative In Southeast Asia’S Sustainability Agenda: From Growth To Equity?, Munjin Syafik Asy’Ari, Andi Axl Azslam Fadillah, Aswin Baharuddin, Nandito Oktaviano, Abdul Razaq Cangara

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

This article evaluates the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the analytical framework of sustainable development. The framework is crucial, as China frequently disseminates sustainability claims to promote the BRI. To assess these claims, it is necessary to examine the realisation of BRI projects alongside the empirical consequences they have generated across recipient countries. Southeast Asia constitutes one of the most prominent target regions for BRI investment. Four Southeast Asian countries occupy a significant position due to the scale and number of projects they have received: Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Each country exhibits distinct political–economic systems and structural conditions, …

From Local To Global: Surabaya’S Paradiplomacy Strategy In Realising A Child-Friendly City, Muhammad Fajhriyadi Hastira, Ali Maksum, Muh Fichriyadi Hastira, Ramalina Ranaivo Mikea Manitra

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

Along with the development of decentralisation and subnational diplomacy, strengthening child protection at the city level has become an important part of the global agenda. This research aims to analyse the implementation of the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative in Surabaya City from a paradiplomacy perspective. In addition, this study seeks to explain the synergy between local, national, and global policies and identify opportunities and challenges using literature studies and analysis of official documents from the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (PPPA) and the Surabaya Office of Women's Empowerment, Child Protection, Population Control, and Family Planning (P3APPKB), the Surabaya City …

Ulama And Vision 2030: Saudi Arabia Government's Strategies To Navigate A Successful Economic Reform, Nashiha Ulya, Hamdan Basyar

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy, but scepticism persists due to past reform failures, particularly in fiscal policy and labour markets. Ulama, as key figures in the Saudi "social contract," play a vital role in legitimising government policies, especially on social and religious matters. However, reforms promoting private sector growth and social liberalisation have raised concerns among conservative ulama over potential threats to Islamic values. To address this, the government under Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) employs a strategy of separating economic and religious narratives while using a "carrot and stick" approach to manage ulama opposition. This …

From Compliance To Care: Reconstructing Feminist Accountability In Global Aid Governance, Andi Pangeran, Ani Widyani Soetjipto, Shelly Adelina

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

This article critically examines the literature on global aid governance through a feminist lens, focusing on three key areas: epistemic power, organisational depoliticisation, and the ethics of accountability. The review reveals that the coloniality of knowledge in global aid governance creates epistemic hierarchies grounded in claims of objectivity and efficiency, thereby marginalising local voices. Meanwhile, processes such as NGO-isation and professionalisation have transformed activism into administrative compliance. However, within these structures, reflective agency can still emerge through negotiated autonomy and the politics of translation, allowing feminist organisations to maintain their political significance. Regarding ethics, feminist accountability is redefined as a …

Restoring The Organization For The Security And Cooperation In Europe’S Role In Human Rights And Security After Russian Invasion, Roman Nekoliak

Human Rights Brief

This Article diagnoses a systemic erosion of rights-based multilateralism driven by geopolitical realignment, reduced leadership by traditional human rights defenders, the rise of authoritarian coalitions, and the growth of transactional and securitized diplomacy. This Article argues that revitalizing the Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) around a rights-centered, cross-dimensional concept of security is essential to restoring both regional stability and the credibility of international human rights commitments. It places the war in Ukraine within broader patterns of democratic backsliding, institutional paralysis, and the rise of authoritarian governance, demonstrating how domestic repression and interstate aggression mutually reinforce one …

Owning The Green Grid: The Political Economy Of Renewable Energy Policy Design, Joshua A. Basseches

Faculty Scholarship

How corporate ownership of the electricity grid matters to state-level renewable energy policymaking.

Historically (and for the foreseeable future), most public policy action in the United States to combat the global climate crisis has taken place at the state level. Former President Joe Biden’s administration marked a significant departure from that trend, as his policies pursued a strategy of “electrify everything” (transportation, buildings, and industry). But who owns the electricity system that is the linchpin of such a strategy, and how does this ownership affect the policy preferences of interest groups at the state level? Owning the Green Grid addresses …

“America Is For Americans Only”: Journalistic Professionalism, Populism, And Latino Ethnic Media In The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, Maria Villarroel

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how journalistic professionalism shaped news coverage of Latino-related issues during the 2024 U.S. presidential election across mainstream and Latino ethnic media outlets. In a polarized political environment, immigration and the “Latino vote” were not only central campaign issues but also sites of radicalized rhetoric that frequently targeted Latino communities and journalists. In this context, journalists were tasked with reporting on highly contentious, hostile narratives while adhering to professional norms. This study argues that these norms influenced how journalists selected, framed, and contextualized political rhetoric, and how media coverage further elevated immigration and Latino communities as key electoral …

Disrupting Power Dynamics In The Archives: The Digital Pv Panther Project, Gatekeeping, And The Texas Black Cooperative Extension & Home Demonstration Collection, T. Dewayne Moore, Evelyn Todd

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This article examines the Texas Black Cooperative Extension & Home Demonstration Collection at Prairie View A&M University as both a major recovery of twentieth-century Black rural history and a contemporary intervention into archival power. Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Digital PV Panther Project employed undergraduate and graduate students to process sixty-three county-level finding aids, 163 archival boxes, and more than 3,200 folders documenting segregated Black Extension work from 1923 to 1963. Beyond preservation, the project challenges long-standing regimes of archival gatekeeping. Drawing on critical archival studies and Black Digital Humanities scholarship, the authors argue that …

The Role Of Socioeconomic Development In Preventing Violent Extremism, Caelan Stewart

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Status Anxiety And Public Support For Reactionary Political Movements, Timothy E. Randall

Political Science Theses

In this enquiry, I explore the conditions that make members of the public receptive to the appeals of reactionary political movements. I also explore the means by which reactionary movements leverage those conditions to gain support. I argue that crisis and status threat conditions prime members of the public to be receptive to the appeals of reactionary movements and that the strategic leveraging of these conditions in their narratives gives rise to status anxiety which, in turn, moves members of traditionally dominant groups to support these movements. I develop an explanatory theoretical framework for understanding status anxiety and its role …

America Against America: A Western Analysis, Matthew Glumac

A with Honors Projects

A 2000-word book report on Wang Huning's "America Against America."

The Jevons Filter: Why Civilizations May Fail Before Reaching “Type I” Status, Giray Fidan

Comparative Civilizations Review

Humanity’s accelerating energy use poses profound questions about the long-term viability of technological civilization. This paper introduces the “Jevons Filter” hypothesis: a self-reinforcing feedback loop between efficiency improvements and rising aggregate consumption, rooted in the classical Jevons Paradox that systematically drives civilizations toward resource depletion and environmental thresholds. Here we argue that this feedback constitutes a critical developmental barrier, hindering sustainable progression toward Kardashev “Type I” energy mastery. We develop a simplified thermodynamic model linking energy efficiency, economic expansion, and civilizational dynamics, and engage with counterarguments regarding absolute decoupling and transformative technological innovations. Building on the classical Jevons Paradox, this …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Deterrence Without Peace: Nuclear Weapons And The Rising Threshold Of Warfare, Catie Clarke

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Nuclear weapons fundamentally changed the international political landscape, leading to the emergence of deterrence theory and the notion of the Long Peace. This paper challenges these claims, arguing that nuclear weapons facilitated a more violent and volatile international system rather than stability. Drawing on constructivist theory, this paper develops the Threshold of Violence framework – a normative model which asserts that nuclear weapons elevated the perceived upper limit of tolerable violence in international politics. This raised threshold generated three trends in the nuclear era: increased frequency of proxy wars, escalating levels of benefactor involvement, and greater severity of conflicts fought …

Human Rights In Turkish Foreign Policy, Elif Babül, Zümray Kutlu

Government: Faculty Books

This book builds on the editors’ earlier work and once again brings together women scholars of Turkish foreign policy from different parts of the world. The contributors take an interdisciplinary approach to foreign policy analysis that is increasingly necessary in a global environment shaped less by traditional statecraft and more by overlapping, non-traditional challenges.

The book places human well-being at the center of foreign policy analysis and highlights dynamics long treated as peripheral, including gender, the environment, civil society, and the transnational role of diasporas.

Through historically grounded and theoretically informed chapters, the authors examine how these concepts and themes …

Reading Wars, Don Herzog

Books

Once again, we’re fighting wars over reading. Who gets to read? What do they get to read? These days, the right is obsessed with removing LGBTQ books from school and public library shelves and ensuring students read only the Correct version of American history. The left is obsessed with eradicating right-wing fantasies, not to mention outright lies, from the internet, and with airbrushing or even purging racist texts. You don’t have to stoop to whataboutery to notice a suspicious resemblance. But once again is wrong. We’ve always fought these wars, even if the enemies come and go. In this book, …

The Paradox Of Intellectual Property At The U.S. Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court is dramatically more politically polarized in the Roberts Court era, and the justices have been criticized for highly ideological and partisan decision-making. Yet, we show that there is one area of law that is becoming less ideologically divided and predictable: intellectual property (IP). In an earlier study, we showed that, prior to the Roberts Court, IP case outcomes were predictable based on judicial ideology, with more conservative justices embracing IP rights, as they do for real property. In the last two decades, IP has become more influential on the economy and society, through the increasing dominance of …

Digital Diplomacy And Activism: Sustaining Institutional Legacy Through State-Proxy Discursive Competition In The Aftermath Of The Usaid 2025 Suspension, Maryam Alaa Elprince

Capstone and Graduation Projects

This study examines how the 2025 suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) transformed the arena of U.S. foreign-aid diplomacy by eliminating the agency’s operational capacity and erasing its digital presence, thereby redistributing discursive authority across a fragmented communicative field. The research aims to determine how diplomacy adapts when a bilateral institution central to American soft power is dismantled through top-down decision, and whether discursive power exercised online can extend institutional relevance and legitimacy beyond structural collapse. Using an interpretivist qualitative design that combines digital-forensic reconstruction, document-based content analysis, and elite interviews  with top ranking officials, the …

The Myth Of The Second Amendment, Laura Muna-Landa

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation traces the evolution of the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, which shifted from a constitutional provision grounded in collective security and concerns about tyranny to a modern doctrine emphasizing an individual right to possess firearms. It contends that post-Heller (District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) decisions do not simply “apply” founding-era intent to modern circumstances but instead reflect a significant doctrinal reconstruction that now shapes both gun policy and public perceptions of constitutional meaning. This research first reconstructs the founding-era context, then tests explanations of judicial behavior, and finally applies that framework to Heller, …

Shared Words, Divided Worlds: Moral Language And The Struggle For Meaning At The Claremont Colleges During The Vietnam War, 1965-1969, Haley Freeth

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the Vietnam War-era campus conflicts at the Claremont Colleges as a profound struggle over the meaning and ownership of moral and political language. Rather than interpreting antiwar and prowar activism as expressions of fundamentally opposed value systems, this study argues that students and administrators alike engaged in an ongoing contest to define ideals such as democracy, responsibility, and conscience. Through a micro-historical lens, the project analyzes how these contested vocabularies were invoked, reinterpreted, and performed in protests, counter-protests, and administrative policies. Drawing from a wide array of archival sources—including student newspapers, protest ephemera, administrative records, and visual …

The Suppression Of The Opelousas Massacre Of 1868: The Blackleg Hunt Or “La Chasse A’ La Jambe Noire”, August Malveaux

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This article examines the suppression of the 1868 Opelousas Massacre—also known as “la chasse à la jambe noire” or the Blackleg Hunt—and situates it within the broader landscape of Reconstruction-era racial violence in Louisiana. Malveaux argues that the massacre was not an isolated riot but a premeditated act of political terrorism designed to eliminate Black electoral participation and reverse Reconstruction gains. Triggered by Black political mobilization and white supremacist resistance, the violence unfolded over several days in September 1868 and resulted in widespread murder, intimidation, and property destruction. The essay challenges the historiographical minimization of the event, emphasizing how organized …

Vacuum Wars: The Belt & Road Initiative’S Rise In The Arab League, Corabeth R. Pierce

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The world has shifted and changed in the last decade, resulting in a new world order. The Middle East and North Africa region houses the Arab League, which has drawn the attention of several states throughout the world. China has shown particular interest in the region since its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first created in 2013. The BRI demonstrates how China has become more involved in the region and that these Arab states are more interested in what China has to offer compared to other countries. With the United States developing more nationalist policies, the European Union facing …

The Influence Of China’S Economic Soft Power: The Perceptions Of Youth In The Case Of Cambodia As A Small State, Mommarolin Srey

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The debate on the continued rise of China remains relevant and central in global politics. China has been employing soft power as a strategic approach to enhance its reputation as a global power on the international stage. While China has made tremendous efforts in soft power diplomacy to foster positive perceptions among many countries, the global survey on the perception of China remains largely negative with only a slight increase in positive perceptions. This thesis examines the younger generation or youth perceptions of China’s economic soft power. This qualitative research uses the case study of Cambodia as small state and …

Monetary Sovereignty In Peril? Cryptocurrencies, Capital Controls And Exchange-Rate Volatility: A Quantitative Global Analysis, Mckeown Boadi Owusu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines whether the rise of cryptocurrencies affects the constraints states face in exercising monetary sovereignty, specifically in stabilizing their currencies. The analysis tests two hypotheses: first, that higher levels of cryptocurrency interests are associated with greater exchange-rate volatility; and second, that this relationship is stronger in countries with more stringent capital-flow management measures. Drawing on a panel dataset of country–month observations across 46 countries from 2017 to 2024, The results provide no consistent evidence that cryptocurrency interest is directly associated with higher exchange-rate volatility. Similarly, the interaction between cryptocurrency interest and capital controls remains insignificant across all models, …