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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Three Essays On The Political Economy Of Cultural Production And Creative Labor, Luke Pretz Oct 2022

Three Essays On The Political Economy Of Cultural Production And Creative Labor, Luke Pretz

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the relationships between capital, cultural production, and creative labor. Essay one theorizes the basis for the intensification of pop music stardom following the introduction of on-demand streaming technology. Prior to the emergence of on-demand streaming, record labels and broadcasters had a mutualistic relationship, wherein the near cost-free music provided by record labels formed the basis for radio broadcasts, which in turn formed the basis for the consumption of that music. Following the emergence of on-demand streaming the mutualistic relationship was ruptured. Broadcasters, in the form of streaming platforms, transitioned to the cost-efficient cultivation of masses of highly …


Three Essays On The Political Economy Of The Cfa Franc, Francis Perez Oct 2022

Three Essays On The Political Economy Of The Cfa Franc, Francis Perez

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is organized into three essays. The second essay provides a historical overview of the CFA franc and explores why the CFA franc has survived for so long. It argues that a historical and dialectical materialist analysis of the CFA’s history can best explain both its extraordinary longevity and the periodic major reforms to its functioning. The third essay assesses whether the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) has an independent monetary policy by examining the relationships between BCEAO’s foreign reserves and base money, and between BCEAO and the European Central Banks’s policy rates. The fourth essay evaluates …


Debris Of Progress: A Political Ethnography Of Critical Infrastructure, Ethan Tupelo Oct 2022

Debris Of Progress: A Political Ethnography Of Critical Infrastructure, Ethan Tupelo

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I advance a political ethnography of critical infrastructure to better understand terminal capitalism, in which the waste products of commodification and resource depletion are destroying the ecological systems that support life. My object of study is the massive disjuncture between individual knowledge and intention, and these catastrophic collective planetary outcomes. Theoretically, I develop critical infrastructure theory to diagnose these destructive structures. By “infrastructure,” I mean systems of material and discursive flows fundamental to sedentary human organization, connecting local actions with global systems. Such infrastructure is “critical” in three senses: A) denoting the most important forms of infrastructure …


Four Essays On Peace Consolidation And Ethnic Reconciliation In Postwar Sri Lanka, Narayani Sritharan Oct 2022

Four Essays On Peace Consolidation And Ethnic Reconciliation In Postwar Sri Lanka, Narayani Sritharan

Doctoral Dissertations

In four essays, this dissertation explores the process of peace consolidation and economic recovery from the devastating conflict of 1983-2009 in Sri Lanka. This dissertation addresses a timely and important topic. The findings make an important contribution to the literature on economic development and peacebuilding, specifically on the role of foreign aid in alleviating the risks of conflict and helping countries rebuild their economies after conflict. The dissertation highlights important political economy dimensions that help illustrate social and political dynamics that lead to conflict, such as regional and ethnic inequalities, which also influence post-conflict reconstruction. In addition to a historical …


Work, Workers, And Reproducing Social Control: Racial Post-Fordism And Alternative Systems, Hannah Rebecca Archambault Oct 2022

Work, Workers, And Reproducing Social Control: Racial Post-Fordism And Alternative Systems, Hannah Rebecca Archambault

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the composition of workers, work, and class, as processes in contemporary capitalism and in other existing or future systems. The first section develops a theoretical framework to understand work and workers which draws on Autonomist Marxist, Black radical, and Marxist feminist literatures. This includes considering new forms and organizations of work that arise from current capitalist economic relations, racialized work, and reproductive work. With this framework I build a theory of racial post-Fordism as the current system of economic relations. In the next section, I apply this theory of racial post-Fordism to work and workers in the …