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The Machine in the Mountains: Papers on the Politics of Economic Firm Intervention in the State in Appalachia Kentucky

Harpole, Charles Conyers
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1125-3129
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1638443110334989

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.
In discussing the intersection between business and politics, Robert Dahl claimed that there is "no dearth of important and even urgent questions." This dissertation tackles one such question: How do economic firm intervention in the development of the state influence modern outcomes? I argue that when institutions are in transition, firms and state actors both face uncertainty, and as a result, they enter an arrangement in which the state actor consistently provides the firm with public resources in return for patronage. I define this as state capture. Across my three papers, I find that when we focus on the role of firms in political development, there are widespread and long-term consequences for the state and local populations when the state is captured. Across all three of these papers, I explore these ramifications in Appalachia Kentucky. State capture is not a novel concept, but its usage is uneven and unclear, and there is no cohesive intellectual conversation. The first paper ameliorates this by taking this literature and synthesizing a concept from which we can derive clearer implications. I use Kentucky and the Appalachian coal region to explore this concept. I collect archival data to test one observable implication of the concept---lack of democratic commitment and non-competitive elections. I find the inverse of what I expect to observe, elections in Appalachia Kentucky, for the locally elected sheriff and tax commissioner are more competitive than my theory predicts. I discuss this finding considering my concept and argue that this represents a need for understanding how economic firms can influence political outcomes. The second paper applies the conceptualization of state capture more deeply to the case of Appalachia Kentucky, to create a model to better understand the region's persistent economic underdevelopment. I argue that compared to previous Appalachian development models, understanding the region's local politics as captured is empirically useful in creating observable implications and testable hypotheses. Using data from a Kentucky Department of Revenue audit of the county Property Valuation Administrator, I show that more historical coal production is associated with more inequitably assessed properties decades later. I argue that we find this dynamic due to the coal industry's incentives in skirting property taxation and that we can trace this modern trend to historical accounts of the region that claim the coal industry's capture of the property valuation administrator position. The third paper explores the impact of coal industry control beyond political institutions. When resource extracting firms enter new geographies, they often need to create novel community institutions around extraction areas to increase production efficiency. I argue that some firms take advantage of this institutional creation to formulate a set of identities centered on resource extraction. As a result, local populations become invested in resource extraction in the long term despite its negative externalities. To test this claim, I use the case of Appalachia Kentucky, measuring the level of coal interference in counties, and trace this to the exhibition of an Appalachian identity using place-based business names, which were collected via Google Places API.
Amanda Robinson (Committee Chair)
Jan Pierskalla (Committee Member)
Janet Box-Steffensmeier (Committee Member)
169 p.
Political Science
political science; appalachia; kentucky; state building; state capture; identity, place; coal; coal politics; appalachian politics; appalachian studies; economic development; political development; archival; rural identity; resource extraction; business; business politics; identity construction

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Harpole, C. C. (2021). The Machine in the Mountains: Papers on the Politics of Economic Firm Intervention in the State in Appalachia Kentucky [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1638443110334989

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Harpole, Charles. The Machine in the Mountains: Papers on the Politics of Economic Firm Intervention in the State in Appalachia Kentucky. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1638443110334989.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Harpole, Charles. "The Machine in the Mountains: Papers on the Politics of Economic Firm Intervention in the State in Appalachia Kentucky." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1638443110334989

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1638443110334989
129
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.