Political Economy Commons^™

From Prison To Homeless Shelter: Camp Laguardia And The Political Economy Of An Urban Infrastructure, Christian D. Siener

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At this time of increasing housing insecurity, recent reforms in homeless shelter policy have attracted the attention of scholars and activists. This research sheds light on these changes by placing them in historical and political-geographic perspective, focusing on the role of homeless shelters in stabilizing social displacement by destabilizing solidarity. It demonstrates historical continuity between prisons and homeless shelters in New York City through a case study of conditions surrounding the transition of Camp LaGuardia, a prison that slowly transformed into the city’s largest, and longest lasting, homeless shelter. The case study is an empirical demonstration of some of the …

Making It Pay To Be A Fan: The Political Economy Of Digital Sports Fandom And The Sports Media Industry, Andrew Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a series of case studies and sociological examinations of the role that the sports media industry and mediated sport fandom plays in the political economy of the Internet. The Internet has structurally changed the way that sport fans access sport and accelerated the processes through which the capitalist actors in the sports media industry have been able to subsume them. The three case studies examined in this dissertation are examples of how digital media technologies have both helped fans become more active producers and consumers of sports and made the sports media industry an integral and vanguard …

The Price Of A Vote: Diseconomy In Proportional Elections, Hygor Piaget M. Melo, Saulo D. S. Reis, Andre ́ A. Moreira, Hernan Makse, Jose ́ S. Andrade Jr.

Publications and Research

The increasing cost of electoral campaigns raises the need for effective campaign planning and a precise understanding of the return of such investment. Interestingly, despite the strong impact of elections on our daily lives, how this investment is translated into votes is still unknown. By performing data analysis and modeling, we show that top candidates spend more money per vote than the less successful and poorer candidates, a relation that discloses a diseconomy of scale. We demonstrate that such electoral diseconomy arises from the competition between candidates due to inefficient campaign expenditure. Our approach succeeds in two important tests. First, …

Perceived Corruption In Ukraine: A National Analysis Using Individual Level Data From 2012-2014, Cody X. Weglinski

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the relationship of perceived corruption in Ukraine and the factors that influence that perception. In particular, this paper investigates the idea that an influential Russian presence affects the perception of governmental corruption amongst Ukrainian business owners and managers.

Capital Growth: Precision Agriculture And Vertical Farming In The Corporate Food Regime, Justin Taylor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Agriculture in the 21st century has entered a digital age. New technologies emphasize GPS, big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, automation, sensors, and robotics, contributing to two modes of modern food production known as precision agriculture and vertical farming. Through an interdisciplinary review of scientific and social scientific scholarship, this paper examines the ways in which these two technologies interact with the global corporate food regime and explores their impact in core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral countries. It also engages in a discourse analysis of promotional materials and interview statements from precision agriculture and vertical farming firms to expose …

The Dictators’ Dilemma: Repression Or Concessions In The Face Of Resistance, Chris Massaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Arab Spring revolts of late 2010 and 2011 were a profound moment in the history of a region troubled by decades of authoritarianism. Years of economic mismanagement and security force repression trammeled on the rights and aspirations of people striving for a better life. When social movements and anti-government protests erupted throughout the region, each country responded to the uprisings with different methodologies. This research closely examines why autocratic regimes of the region chose such divergent responses, with some opting to use violent repression, others attempting to make concessions and most combined repression with concessions. I will make the …

Venezuela: Oil And Madness. Politics, Propaganda, And Realities Of The Chavista Era, Alvaro E. De Prat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is an interdisciplinary exploration of Venezuela’s political paradoxes and their consequences during the Chavista years. On a concrete level, in this work I propose how the manner in which Hugo Chávez implemented his at first apparently benign redistributive politics in fact precipitated the country's current humanitarian crisis and what I will argue are the times of starkest inequality in modern Venezuelan history. Integral to this, although on a more philosophical level, here I also offer a theory of how and why Chávez’s representations might have been so misinterpreted.

The list of eminent political thinkers who have vouched for …

Immigration And The Public-Private School Choice, Lidia Farre, Francesc Ortega, Ryuichi Tanaka

Publications and Research

This paper empirically analyzes the effects of immigration on the schooling decisions of natives. We employ household-level data for Spain for years 2000-2015, a period characterized by high economic growth and large immigration that was halted by a long and severe recession. Our estimates reveal that increases in immigrant density at the school level triggered an important native flight from tuition-free, public schools toward private ones. We also find strong evidence of cream-skimming as more educated native households are the most likely to switch to private schools in response to immigration. Furthermore, we find that immigration leads to higher student-teacher …

Economics, Politics And The Environment, Ron Mandelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Classical economists were interested in macroeconomic issues, i.e. how the economy worked as a whole and how it grew over time. This is opposed to neo-classical economists, which focus on decision-making processes of individuals and individual firms. This thesis sets out to examine how that change occurred and what it means for the way that economics studies the environment. In order to provide a partial answer to this question, this paper describes the different outlooks between classical and neo-classical economists regarding value. It also examines and contrasts the economic approaches of Marx and Mill, whose way of thinking about social …

La Dialéctica, David Harvey

Publications and Research

Raymond Williams eligió el recurso de pensar ‘mundos posibles’ ficticios para abordar la complejidad de temas relativos al lugar, el espacio y el ambiente. ¿Sin embargo, será que este era un recurso necesario, o más bien una estrategia aleatoria suya para profundizar en el estudio de la teoría de la cultura? Empezaré en este capítulo por demostrar que la estrategia empleada por Williams no es necesaria en absoluto. Espero poder demostrar que la investigación materialista histórica, inducida por un entendimiento dialéctico, puede integrar los temas de lugar, espacio y ambiente (naturaleza) en la teoría social y en la teoría literaria. …