Political Economy Commons^™

Professor Mike Seeborg On Covid-19 Jobless Benefits, Eric Stock

Interviews for WGLT

IWU Professor of Economics Mike Seeborg said Congress should extend COVID-19 jobless benefits past July of 2020, but should also develop a plan to phase them out once jobless rates fall below 10%. Eric Stock from WGLT spoke to Seeborg about ecconomic issues related to Covid-19.

Economies Of Security: Foucault And The Genealogy Of Neoliberal Reason, Marshall Scheider

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. Today, while critique of neoliberalism has become a commonplace of humanities discourse, and popular resistance to neoliberalization rocks the southern hemisphere, it remains unclear that the historical specificity of neoliberalism is well-understood. In particular, the relation between classical liberalism and neoliberal governance remains murky in popular debate. As Foucault powerfully illustrates, this relation is far from clear-cut, and neoliberalism is not reducible to a simple extension of …

“The Speechmaking Of A Girl-Orator”: Reason, Gender, And Authority In Dorothy Hunter’S Free Trade Oratory, Erinn Elizabeth Campbell

Honors Projects

Dorothy M. Hunter (1881-1977) rose to prominence during the 1906 United Kingdom general election as a markedly “girlish” yet widely respected free trade orator. While men on the Edwardian public political platform typically built a reputation for oratorical prowess through theatrical displays of “heroic” masculinity, Hunter established her authority as a speaker through two very different (and apparently contradictory) strategies. Her performance of “charming” middle-class femininity helped demonstrate her right to speak on free trade as a “women’s question,” extending women’s traditional authority over matters of domestic consumption to include questions of political economy. Trusting in the power of education …

Contemporary High-Skilled Mexican Immigrant Entrepreneurs In Texas, Elizabeth Salamanca, Jorge Alcaraz

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The number of Mexican entrepreneurs relocating to the United States has significantly increased during the last decade and their profile, as well as that of their businesses, have changed. This study develops a typology of Mexican migrant entrepreneurs living in the U.S., particularly in Texas, and of the business ventures that they undertake, and it determines the association between the entrepreneurs' profile and the kind of businesses they create. Through the analysis of migrant entrepreneurs' profiles, this paper identifies in what kind of transnational activities these entrepreneurs participate. The research follows both a qualitative approach based on the Gioia methodology …

Red Sea, White Tides, And Blue Horizons, John P. Devine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eric Hobsbawm, in his effort to explain the fundamental divide which produced the Second World War, convincingly argues that “the crucial lines in this civil war were not drawn between capitalism as such and communist social revolution, but between ideological families: on the one hand the descendants of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the great revolutions including, obviously the Russian revolution’, on the other hand, its opponents.” This thesis argues that the American Civil War was a “great revolution” that represented a crucial transformative point in the formation of these two waring factions. The struggle was especially influential on the theory …

Original Gangsters: Genre, Crime, And The Violences Of Settler Democracy, Sean M. Kennedy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon examinations of genericity, subalternity, and carcerality by Black, Indigenous, and women-of-color feminist scholars, my dissertation offers an account of how truth claims are produced and sustained to limit social change in representatively governed societies. Taking the gangster genre as my lens, I first resituate the form, assumed to depict white-ethnic conflict in the U.S. and Europe, as a type of resistance to race-based political economic policies imposed by imperial regimes. After linking the subaltern classes of pre-20th-century southern Europe, southern Africa, South Asia, and the U.S. South—all subjected to criminalization as a mode of colonial and capitalist control—I …

Reclaiming Indiana: The Politics Of Crisis Amid The Failures Of Liberal Capitalist Modernity, Chris Grove

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This ethnography examines grassroots political responses to the economic crisis that began in 2008, foremost in the US Midwest, which arguably laid the groundwork both for the election of President Donald Trump and presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders. President Obama launched his $787 billion stimulus plan in Elkhart, Indiana, in early 2009. At the height of the crisis, unemployment skyrocketed from four to 20 percent in Elkhart, and it became central to struggles over the political direction of the US. With few safety nets, Elkhart residents struggled to meet their basic needs, creating conditions for political organizing on both …

Building For Culture: How Municipal Ownership Of Cultural Facilities Influences Annual Arts Funding In American Cities, Adam M. Sachs

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how local government support for arts and culture varies across 24 American cities. It has proven to be challenging for researchers to accurately measure municipal arts support. Research on cultural policy has also often focused on the federal level, despite total city expenditures far exceeding national or state government support. This thesis attempts to take an accurate pulse of city expenditures in 2017 and correlates those spending levels to the variation in city ownership of arts facilities. Rooted in the historical perspectives of the ‘new institutionalism’ and path-dependency, this paper argues that past decisions about taking ownership …

Disamenity Or A Signal Of Competence? The Empirical Political Economy Of Local Road Maintenance, Benjamin Blemings, Margaret Bock

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Empirical results find different conclusions than theoretical evidence of how electorates perceive road work. This paper uses a geographically smaller unit of analysis than prior work, political alignment, local election cycles, and difference-in-differences. It finds political distortions in invasive road maintenance timing and rules out maintenance seasonality. Spatial discontinuity plots leveraging ward boundary cutoffs confirm the shift. Results identify new public distortions to road maintenance, local election cycles, which are widespread and frequent. The estimates are used to calculate financial costs of local elections on road maintenance. Local elections have cost medium-large U.S. cities over $185.5 million from 1960- 2020.

Projects Of Economic And Social Development In The Global South: The 20th And 21st-Century Developmental Trends And Their Impacts, Malachi Okechi Chukwu

2020 Symposium Posters

In the 1950’s Western countries promised to promote economic development in the underdeveloped world. However, the Global South remains behind, trapped in abject poverty. Eurocentric literature produced by mainstream scholars of economic growth in the past seven decades has continually promoted Structural Adjustment Programs and Millennium Development Goals designed to improve the Global South. Tragically, each of the West’s prescribed economic models failed at the expense of people of the Global South. The failure of Western promised growth led to an opportunity for China to offer an alternative model. Additionally, the long-term effects of the prescribed models of development have …

Sanctuary Cities And Their Respective Effect On Crime Rates, Adam R. Schutt

Undergraduate Economic Review

According to the U.S. Center for Immigration Studies (2017), cities or counties in twenty-four states declare themselves as a place of “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. This study addresses the following question: Do sanctuary cities experience higher crime rates than those cities that are not? Using publicly available data, this regression analysis investigates the relationship between crime rates in selected cities and independent variables which the research literature or the media has linked to criminal activity. Results of this research reveal that sanctuary cities do not experience higher violent or property crime rates than those cities that are not sanctuary cities.

Assessing The Determinants Of The Human Development Index In Oil-Dependent Nations, Adrian Fossaceca

Undergraduate Economic Review

Numerous rentier states from around the world derive all or a fundamental portion of their national revenues from the rent of natural resources. These revenues are essential for the policy-making strategies pertaining to social welfare programs and for the funding of development projects within the country. In order to determine the effectiveness of rentier states in terms of development promotion, this paper will utilize the Human Development Index (HDI) as a proxy variable for development levels. Regression analysis indicates that a substantial proportion of the variation of the Human Development Index in oil-dependent economies can be explained by the adolescent …

Co-Predatory Rule: International Cooperation With Respect To Cryptocurrency Taxation In Russia And Belarus, Jim Mignano

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This article presents an example of how globalization and digitization force states to rely on international organization. Examining tax policy with respect to cryptocurrency—an innovative, global technology—the implication is that a state levying taxes on cryptocurrency must turn to international monitoring and enforcement regimes to support effective taxation. Based on Margaret Levi’s theory of predatory rule, I submit a theory of “co-predation” to explain international cooperation with respect to taxation of novel, cross-border technologies such as cryptocurrency. The Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI), an anti-tax evasion framework promulgated by the OECD, serves as an example of international cooperation. A comparison …

The Risk Of Monetary Integration: How Italy And Germany’S Cultural And Economic Differences Are Incompatible With Shared Monetary Policy And Jeopardize The Stability Of The Union, Matthew Rossi Jordan

Senior Theses

The project of the European Union has successfully transformed western Europe into a powerful and stable bloc empowered by expansive economic and political integration. However, certain pathways of integration, such as the introduction of the Eurozone and the monetary consolidation it entails, have actually weakened the Union by disregarding the vast economic and cultural differences between the countries. In this thesis, I use the examples of Germany and Italy, outlining and discussing various cultural and economic differences between them to show their incompatibility with a shared currency. I will substantiate this with a discussion of monetary policy, and will dissect …

The Effect Of The Second-Stage Anti-Corruption Campaign On Provincial Development In China, 2015-2017, Zhenyao Yuan

Master's Theses

China had experienced long-term economic growth since the reform in 1978. With the communism system shifts in the socialist market economy, the country's legal institution and administration are facing corruption's challenge. President Xi Jinping takes action against deep corruption in China after coming to power in 2013. To observe the impact of the second stage of the anti-corruption campaign on provincial economic development since the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2015 to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017, this project downloads and extracts public …

Dispute Initiation In The World Trade Organization: An Evaluation Of Trade Complaints Filed With The U.S. Trade Representative’S Office Between 1995 And 2004, Jennifer Dikler

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the determinants of dispute settlement prior to formal WTO proceedings, utilizing 2,334 complaints filed with the USTR between 1995 and 2004. My results affirm that the gravity model continues to hold explanatory power in explaining WTO dispute initiation, as do the characteristics of the barrier itself.

Forgotten: A Study Of The Long-Term Economic Ramifications Suffered By Survivors Of Violence Against Females Sustained During State-Terror Such As Genocides, Natasha Holmark Andersen

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to answer the question: What are the long-term economic ramifications of sexual violence against females in state terror such as genocide? This paper explores the thematic elements, conducive factors and the effects of the existence of sexual violence in state-terror genocides.

To do this, the paper first explores the elements of terrorism and apply them directly to state terror. The notion that states are immune from the blame of terrorism is acknowledged and debunked, furthering the association between terrorism and acts of state terror. Next, genocide is defined as the most atrocious act of state terror, and …

Income Inequality In America: Conclusions From 100 Years Of Income Tax Data And Cross-Country Comparisons, Noriel Campos

Master's Theses

In 1913, taxation of income was permanently introduced in the United States. Other similarly developed countries soon followed suit. From there, income inequality in the United States dropped significantly, and the decline in Europe was even more dramatic. First, this paper considers the changes over time of the share of national income gained by the top 1% of income earners in seven countries going back to World War Two. A second analysis considers the impact that tax policy may have had on the share of income accruing to the top 1% of U.S. income earners between 1980 and 2014, a …

Green Gold: Avocado Price Shocks And Violence In Mexico, Katie Roett

Master's Theses

The role of economic incentives in political armed conflict is well documented, but there is very little evidence on a growing and increasingly globalized form of violence: organized crime. Most existing research focuses on the impact of price shocks on wages and how this affects an individual’s opportunity cost to join an armed group or political movement. However, unlike other violent groups, organized criminal groups do not compete for political power, but profits in illegal markets. In Mexico, these groups have more than doubled in the past two decades, leading to an explosion of violence and record high 35,000 people …

Liberté, Égalité, Manifester: Explaining The Yellow Vest Movement In France, Brady L. Cole

Honors Theses

Les Gilets Jaunes, or the yellow vests, is a movement of protestors that have had a large presence in France since 2018. Beginning as an online petition against French President Emmanuel Macron’s fuel tax hike, the movement has quickly amassed several hundred thousand protestors in Paris and other cities across the country. It is the objective of this thesis to examine potential reasons why 300,000 people have felt the need to protest throughout France, apart from the now rescinded fuel tax.

To this end, a sample of data from the Varieties of Democracy database was selected. These variables covered various …