Political Economy Commons^™

Indigenous Rights Policy And Terrorist Discourse: A Strategy To Stifle Mapuche Self-Determination In Chile, Reyna Mckinnon

Scripps Senior Theses

When President Sebastián Piñera entered office in 2010 the Mapuche indigenous people were receiving two contrasting messages from the Chilean State. On the one hand, the government ratified ILO Convention 169, pledging to protect the indigenous right to prior consultation in programs that affect their communities. On the other hand, the government was involved in the oppression of Mapuche communities in the region of the Araucanía through militarisation and the application of the Anti-Terrorist Law to punish radical Mapuche activists that protest corporate encroachment on their land. While Piñera had the opportunity to legitimize the Mapuche demand for self-determination by …

Examining Tanzania's Development Landscape, Jenna Hussein

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis will examine Tanzania’s development landscape through Amartya Sen’s perspective, as per his conception of development that is put forth in Development as Freedom. Applying Sen’s conception of development to the case of Tanzania reinforces his view that development is an intricate process that is dependent on the expansion of various freedoms. It also yields unique insights about the most pressing issues that are currently impeding progress in the country. I will first clarify Sen’s framework and provide an explanation of development that corresponds with his ideals. Next, I will assess Tanzania’s state of affairs in terms of …

Antitrust, Competition Policy, And Inequality, Jonathan B. Baker, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Economic inequality recently has entered the political discourse in a highly visible way. This political impact is not a surprise. As the U.S. economy has begun to recover from the Great Recession since mid-2009, economic growth has effectively been appropriated by those already well off, leaving the median household less well off. The serious economic, political and moral issues raised by inequality can be addressed through a panoply of public policies including competition policy, the focus of this article. The article describes the channels through which market power contributes to inequality, and sets forth a range of possible antitrust policy …

The Fair And Laissez-Faire Markets: From A Neoliberal Laissez-Faire Baseline To A Fair Market, Eric L. Dixon

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The essay begins with a brief overview of the role of the neoliberal conception of the laissez-faire market in modern political economy. The essay then goes on to defend three claims: 1) the laissez-faire version of a market should not be considered the economic ideal or baseline version of a market because often the fundamental conditions required to reach a genuine equilibrium are unfulfilled under a laissez-faire environment, 2) a distribution resultant from a laissez-faire market should not be considered the ultima facie just distributive baseline because an unregulated market may allocate commodities according to morally arbitrary factors and requires …

Happiness In Public Policy, Laura Musikanski

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The happiness movement represents a new paradigm where social, economic, and environmental systems are structured to encourage human well-being in a sustainable environment. Bhutan has adopted Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a way of determining its society’s success in contrast to purely economic goals and the singular use of the gross domestic product indicator. Bhutanese policy promulgation includes use of a GNH screening tool. In the United Kingdom, happiness indicators are being used to collect data and the government is starting to explore their application to policy. The Bhutanese GNH policy screening tool has been adapted for the grassroots activists, …

Meeting The Challenge Of Reconstruction And Development In Fragile States: Lessons From Aceh, Haiti, And South Sudan, Josef Leitmann

International Institute for Infrastructure Resilience and Reconstruction (I3R2) Conference

Reconstruction and development in poor, fragile countries present a double challenge: tackling the issues of poverty and underdevelopment as well as the constraints posed by instability, poor governance, and weak capacity. This context generates a range of problems that include: insecurity, insufficient planning, inadequate implementation capacity, poor financial management, misprocurement, corruption, a volatile fiscal environment, ineffective donor coordination, and negative environmental and social impacts. The paper draws lessons from positive and negative experiences in meeting these challenges in three conflict- and/or disaster-affected cases: Aceh Province, Indonesia (postdisaster reconstruction and postconflict development following the tsunami and earthquakes of 2004), Haiti (postdisaster …

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman

All Master's Theses

In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …

The Youth Unemployment Crisis Facing Welfare Regimes: How States Develop New Social Policy, Andrew C. Campbell

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Export Controls: A Contemporary History, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides highlights of my recently published book Export Controls: A Contemporary History. Describes the roles played by multiple U.S. Government agencies and congressional oversight committees in this policymaking arena including the Commerce, Defense, State, and Treasury Departments. It also reviews the roles played by international government organizations such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, export oriented businesses, and research intensive universities.

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

The Primacy Of Context: An Exploration Into The Causes Of Food Insecurity In Kitere, Kenya., William O. Aludo

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this study was to explore the specific reasons why households in Kitere village, Kenya experience persistent food insecurity every year while the region enjoys the advantage of two planting/harvest seasons in a year. Kitere village lies within the lakeside region of Nyanza Province in Kenya, generally considered to be one of the more agriculturally productive parts of the country. The Participatory Rural Appraisal method was employed to gather qualitative data on the causes of food insecurity in Kitere village. The data sources were focus groups and a self-administered, one-time survey of random and non-random samples of key …

How Foreign Firms Transformed Ireland’S Domestic Economy, Paul Donnelly

Articles

Today, Ireland is host to 1,033 multinational corporations. They directly employ 152,785 and account for 70 per cent or €122.5bn of exports. It’s a story that has its roots in the 1940s.

Can State And Local Revenue And Expenditure Enhance Economic Growth? A Cross-State Panel Study Of Fiscal Activity, Christopher Arthur Clarke

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The slow economic recovery since the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession requires state and local governments to continue to make difficult decisions concerning which taxes to raise and which expenditures to decrease in order to maintain a balanced budget. As expenditures usually raise economic growth and taxes generally hinder it, seeking the optimum combination of tax structures and expenditure options is necessary to encourage prosperity in a state. In this paper I study the effects of various expenditures and revenue combinations on growth in state personal income from 1977-2010 for 49 states and the District of Columbia. I find …

The Universal Savings Credit, Christian Weller, Sam Ungar

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 took a tremendous toll on household wealth and shattered the sense of financial security for millions of American families. American households lost more than $20 trillion in wealth (in 2012 dollars) in the Great Recession, and households still had $10 trillion less in wealth at the end of 2012 than they had before the crisis. This massive wealth decline contributed to a widespread loss of economic security, particularly among lower-income and moderate-income families, single women, and communities of color.

This economic insecurity can have long-ranging adverse effects on U.S. economic growth as American …

Energy, U.S. Department Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides information about the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies and how DOE influences federal energy policy and scientific research in the western U.S.

Defense, U.S. Department Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of U.S. Department of Defense activities in the western U.S. including the military's increasing emphasis on Asia-Pacific strategic trends and developments.

Hydroelectric Power, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview and contemporary analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of federal government support for hydroelectric power in the American West.

Oil Industry, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of the historical and contemporary development of the American oil industry and how it has impacted U.S. natural resources policies in the American west.

Subsidies, Agricultural, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides historical and contemporary information on U.S. Government agricultural subsidies and how they affect agricultural policy in the Western U.S.

Link Levy To Services- Not Urban Middle Class Assets, Tom Dunne

Articles

Paying any tax is an unwelcome burden, but in Ireland many have a particular aversion to taxes on their homes. We are not alone in this. Elsewhere, taxes on homes are also unpopular; witness the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation which forced the California state government to cut property taxes. Nevertheless, residential property taxes remain an almost universal feature of developed countries because of compelling economic arguments for them. Also, local property taxes are regarded as the best means of funding local government.

Rarely, it seems to me, is there such a distance between what the public wants and …

Disinvestment And Suburban Decline, Robert Streetar

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Beginning in the mid-1970s, U.S. suburbs started to experience many of the same problems typically associated with earlier inner-city decline including accelerating income decline, increasing family poverty, falling housing prices, growing income polarization, escalating crime, and increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

Conventional wisdom often lays the blame for neighborhood decline on who moves in and who moves out. This is understandable, as neighborhood migration is easily observable. It is the hypothesis of this research, though, that the less visible disinvestment of capital from suburban neighborhoods is an initial cause of suburban decline that precedes and coincides with the more observable …

Water Governance In Bolivia: Policy Options For Pro-Poor Infrastructure Reform, Daniel M. Maxwell

CMC Senior Theses

As the case with most countries across Latin America, unprecedented migration to urban areas has strained city infrastructure systems. More particularly, the region faces a pressing crisis of water security, where rapid urbanization has outpaced water sector development. This thesis addresses the water infrastructure reform in El Alto and La Paz, Bolivia, focusing on strategies to better promote water access for the peri-urban poor. The research investigates the level of progressivity of water service expansion and pricing regimes: in other words, does the present model of water distribution positively improve the lives of the poorest groups? By investigating these social …

Three Essays On Local Government Debt, Robert Greer

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

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 …

Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Impacts And Reform Strategies, Jennifer E. Good

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis uses cross-country panel regressions to identify the effects of fossil-fuel subsidies for both oil importers and oil exporters on GDP growth, industry growth, crowding out of government expenditures in education, health, and infrastructure, government debt, carbon dioxide emissions, inequality and poverty. Fossil-fuel subsidies are found to be associated with lower levels of growth and industry growth, less government expenditure on health and education, poorer infrastructure quality, more government debt, and higher rates of carbon dioxide emissions. No relationship is found between fossil fuel subsidies and poverty and inequality. These results confirm the arguments of those that argue that …

The Closure Of New Orleans' Charity Hospital After Hurricane Katrina: A Case Of Disaster Capitalism, Kenneth Brad Ott

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Amidst the worst disaster to impact a major U.S. city in one hundred years, New Orleans’ main trauma and safety net medical center, the Reverend Avery C. Alexander Charity Hospital, was permanently closed. Charity’s administrative operator, Louisiana State University (LSU), ordered an end to its attempted reopening by its workers and U.S. military personnel in the weeks following the August 29, 2005 storm. Drawing upon rigorous review of literature and an exhaustive analysis of primary and secondary data, this case study found that Charity Hospital was closed as a result of disaster capitalism. LSU, backed by Louisiana state officials, …

The Effects Of Political Institutions On Public Budgeting, Andrew Burnos

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Economics around the globe has been a growing issue of late due to the current economic crisis. This study focuses on political institutional factors that influence spending in a particular country. The variables used in this study include Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Tax Revenue as Percent of GDP, and current account balance to name a few. This research looks at the relationship between proportional representation compared to majoritarian systems as well as presidential compared to parliamentary systems and how these relate to public budgeting. This research updates the analysis of Persson and Tabellini in their book The Economic Effects of …

The Embeddedness Of Responsible Business Practice: National Institutional Environments And Corporate Social Responsibility, Luc Fransen

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Academic literature recognizes that firms in different countries deal with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in different ways. Because of this, analysts presume that variations in national institutional arrangements affect CSR practices. Literature however lacks specificity in determining, first, what parts of national political economic configurations actually affect CSR practices; second, the precise aspects of CSR affected by national-institutional variables; third, how casual mechanisms between national institutional framework variables and aspects of CSR practices work. Because of this the literature is not able to address to what extent CSR practices are affected by either global or national policies, discourses and economic …

Review Of Daniel Mockli's "Strategic Trends 2012: Key Developments In Global Affairs, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This review essay describes and analyzes the content of this annual compilation of international affairs essays published by the Zurich-based Center for Strategic Studies.

Voter Ideology, Tax Exporting, And State And Local Tax Structure, John M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

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 …

Whose Budget? Our Budget? Broadening Political Stakeholdership Via Participatory Budgeting, Celina Su

Publications and Research

In this thought piece, I attempt to contextualize New York City’s inaugural participatory budgeting (PB) process in the larger landscape of American political participation. I discuss how the bottom-up way in which stakeholders wrote the process’s rules in the first place, alongside the core role played by the two lead organizations, helped to broaden notions of stakeholdership among constituents. Ultimately, the first year’s primary achievement regarding political participation was not a specific set of outcomes, but a debut as an unfinished form of governance—one that began to engage traditionally marginalized constituents, to trigger their political imagination, and to prompt them …