Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism

This thesis examines the comparative relationship between ESPN and Fox Sports One through the content of their original programming. A laboratory experiment showing participants stimuli from the ESPN program SportsCenter and the Fox Sports One program Fox Sports Live is used to generate statistical evidence that viewer attitudes of the two programs are equivalent. This finding is surrounded with a general analysis of the empirical components of the other original programming broadcast by both networks. The vast economic power of both entities are viewed through both competitive marketing theory and the lens of political economy to situate these findings within the economic sphere they reside in.

Committee: Carson Wagner Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication; Experiments

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2001, Arts and Sciences : Economics

This dissertation employs a political economy approach to study the joint determination of federal and state level policies in an economy with a federal form of governance. A formal framework is developed that captures strategic interactions between federal and state governments as well as strategic interactions between special interest groups and policymakers. This analytical framework is subsequently used to analyze the policy implications of multilateral lending under policy conditionality. In the first section of the dissertation, we consider a case in which the small economy government has access to a single instrument of policy for political redistribution. This case serves as a useful benchmark for subsequent analysis wherein each level of governance retains access to a redistributive policy tool. The results of the benchmark case illustrate that policy-making at the highest level of governance helps to reduce the extent of policy-induced distortions. Moreover, earmarking of multilateral lending for particular states of a federal economy results in the same policy outcome as the one when the multilateral loan is disbursed to the federal government. When each level of governance enjoys access to a redistributive instrument, results of the model are determined by the equilibrium relationship between the two policies. If, in equilibrium, the state-level policy behaves as a strategic complement to the policy set at the center, earmarking of the loan to the least protectionist state governments reinforces the decline in trade distortions in the economy. This leads to a higher level of social welfare in the economy as a whole. Alternatively, if the two policies are strategic substitutes in equilibrium, then although conditional lending to the federal government tends to reduce the extent of distortions caused by the federal policy, the state-level policy-induced distortions tend to rise as a consequence. In such situations, by additionally earmarking the loan to th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Wolfgang Mayer (Advisor) Subjects: Economics, General

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, Political Science

According to empirical data, income inequality within countries has increased in the past several decades, despite theoretical models which predicted the opposite. During this same time period, levels of financial development have also increased. Therefore, what impact does financial development have on income inequality? Current theoretical models predict that financial development should decrease inequality in a negative linear or negative non-linear fashion, yet the direction of this relationship is still empirically ambiguous as there is evidence supporting both sides. Furthermore, in order to elucidate this relationship, I incorporate political science variables to assess this question. Measurements of state capacity, the idea that states need a competent administrative capacity to successfully implement laws throughout their territory, are included because state capacity is indirectly linked to mechanisms behind income inequality, including financial development. Thus, what is the relationship between state capacity, financial development, and income inequality? Using an unbalanced panel dataset of 134 developed and developing states from the years 1960 to 2016 and more appropriate regression estimation techniques, I find evidence which suggests current theories do not hold up to scrutiny. Rather, the relationship between financial development and income inequality is positive and linear. Additionally, the results are ambiguous as to how state capacity acts as a mediating variable in this relationship but we have preliminary evidence which suggests that state capacity dilutes financial development's income inequality inducing affects. Furthermore, I find that different combinations of government, business, and labor relations impact income inequality and financial development's influence as well. These findings have important implications for public policy.

Committee: Sarah Brooks (Advisor); Marcus Kurtz (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

My dissertation research is an integrated design and analysis based on archival records and artifacts that examines the effectiveness of various civic organizations and collective agency of the populace in the development of education in Great Britain, the United States, and India. This research focuses on political development, and other areas concerning religious and ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, peace, international political economy and how those forces helped or hindered the development of education in those three countries. Further, this dissertation investigates the ancient and medieval origins of Indian education and its subsequent developments during the British Empire and during post-colonial development periods. My findings have led me to conclude that civilization is driven by perceived immediate self interest and divisions along various racial, ethnic, class/caste lines have served to further impede the development of education in Great Britain, the United States, and India. Moreover, increasing globalization and modernization of economies have provided many countries with increased opportunities, but also have served to create many challenges in regards to education in effectively dealing with those challenges. This dissertation challenges the concept embodied by a whole realm of post-modern literature that purports that educational institutions including science, learning, literacy, and technology was developed by the bourgeoisie. Instead, this dissertation argues that these educational institutions were developed by the populace through the use and implementation of actions by labor unions and civic organizations. Post-modern literature is dominated by the social control thesis, which, emphasizes the instruments of control, but deemphasizes the role of the populace in implicating the development of education, literacy, science, technology, etc. In the U.S., the ‘new historical revisionists' have taken the position that free, compulsory, publi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Marvin Berlowitz PhD (Committee Chair); Thomas A. Kessinger PhD (Committee Member); Vanessa Allen-Brown PhD (Committee Member); Mary Benedetti EdD (Committee Member); Dinshaw Mistry PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic Theory

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Communication

Politics and the economy are inextricably linked. This study argues that the economy has been an under-developed contextual variable capable of coordinating the process and consequences of political communication. An economic theory of political communication effects is proposed to capture the dynamic ecology of citizens' political involvement. In particular, economic conditions are theorized to impact voters' news media use and political learning through a series of mechanisms.The study analyzed fifty years of ANES (American National Election Studies) data through using multilevel modeling techniques. Results show that a) both the “bad news-prone” media and economically-rational voters were reactive to serious economic declines; b) based on subjective value judgments, political information from the news media was perceived to carry different levels of gratifications and utilities under different economic conditions; and c) voters with different levels of learning motivation exhibited varying degrees of learning effects through seeking and absorbing campaign information from the news media. The contribution of this study lies in its focus on one societal level variable, the economy to examine political communication effects. Given that informed participation strikes at the very heart of representative democracy, it is important to understand the underlying processes and mechanisms of political learning from both micro and macro perspectives. The current study provides solid evidence to support the arguments from existing literature on the role of motivation, media use, and information environment in learning about politics. In addition, a causal flow is established from the presence of an economic crisis, to learning motivation, to news exposure, and finally to knowledge acquisition. It is maintained that the study of political communication can benefit from considering macro economic variables, which can bring more explanatory power to models of political communic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Eveland Jr. (Advisor); Andrew Hayes (Committee Member); Gerald Kosicki (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences; Communication; Mass Media; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation is a study of the role of the prestigious cavalry branch of the Ottoman dynasty's household troops, “the People of the Six Regiments,” or altı boluk halkı, in the political upheavals, administrative transformations, and provincial rebellions that shook the Ottoman Empire between the 1620s and 1660s. Scholars of this period have devoted little attention to the altı boluk halkı, based on the assumption that the relevance of their organization in Ottoman state and society was on the wane in comparison to their infantry counterparts, the janissaries. Using extensive archival material, the present study challenges this view, arguing that the seventeenth-century altı boluk halkı evolved into a dynamic political and socio-economic elite in Anatolia, the Balkans, and northern Syria. Their members fortified their authority in these regions by functioning as tax collectors, a privilege that reached its greatest proportions in the decade following the infamous 1622 regicide of Sultan Osman II. Their consolidation of power in turn provoked a reaction when, in 1632, Sultan Murad IV initiated a reform program intended to strengthen the central government vis-a-vis the altı boluk halkı's new elites. These developments provide the essential context for the bloody rebellions that broke out in Istanbul and Anatolia after 1648. Rather than spontaneous uprisings, these rebellions emerged from efforts of members of the altı boluk halkı to preserve their elite status and to recover the privileges that the reforms of Murad IV had eliminated. By tracing the volatile trajectory of the altı boluk halkı, this dissertation makes a new contribution to debates over the Ottoman Empire's seventeenth-century transformation and its experience of the global ‘crisis of the seventeenth century.'

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Advisor); Elizabeth Bond (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Middle Eastern History; World History

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2022, English

The teaching, learning, and administration of writing in higher education are increasingly being influenced by new technologies called analytics. Analytics are being used to teach disciplinary knowledge and predict and promote student success, but the approaches these technologies use may not resonate with evidence-based research about how writing is learned and may risk creating inequity in student experiences. Thus, this project explores explore how analytics are impacting the teaching, learning, and administration of writing in higher education. Stakeholders in Writing Studies are in a kairotic moment where they have a choice to about whether to engage in questions about analytics. This dissertation offers ideas and strategies for stakeholders in writing to engage with analytics in their work and looks towards future visions for what technology use might look like in Writing Studies.

Committee: Tim Lockridge (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Wardle (Committee Member); Jim Coyle (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member); Linh Dich (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Education Policy; Educational Technology; Rhetoric; Technical Communication

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Arts and Sciences: Political Science

Most International Relations literature suggests that when power becomes imbalanced, such a situation will be corrected – hegemony cannot persist over time. However, history offers us several examples of hegemonies lasting over a century, e.g., Ancient Rome, Ming China. So far scholars have offered four explanations for such enduring hegemony (Coercive Hegemony, Cooperative Hegemony, Cultural Hegemony, and Opportunist Hegemony), with a common mechanism: ineffective balancing. Namely, the hegemon has the capacity to put balancing at bay using different strategies flowing from the nature and fundamental principles of its hegemony. Hence, the hegemon uses coercion, institutional leverage, ideological indoctrination, or buyout, in order to assure its hegemony can endure. Yet, through time and through crisis the capacities of the hegemon to make the balancing ineffective diminishes. As such, these theories all share a similar assumption – imbalance is transitory and thus hegemony will breakdown. But what if that common assumption is incorrect. What if under certain conditions, imbalance is not resisted, but rather serves interests of non-hegemonic states as well as the hegemon? Twentieth and twenty-first century US hegemony suggests such conditions may exist. This American imbalance displays a different nature and fundamental mechanism behind its functioning. Although US relative power is declining, its global monetary network centrality is not. Moreover, even in times of severe crisis, such as the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, or the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, we have not witnessed US monetary centrality decline. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The dynamics associated with an imbalance of power in favor of the United States runs against the expectations of existing theories. Therefore, we need a different theory to make sense of these particularities and make better policy recommendations. Thus, I have developed a Pervasive Hegemony Theory, which is (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Harknett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Thomas Moore Ph.D. (Committee Member); Brendan Green Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Political Science

The twenty-first century in Latin America was, and remains, a period of dramatic changes. The economic crises and austerity policies of the 1980s and 1990s were replaced in the early 2000s by a "Pink Tide" of left-wing governments, windfall revenues from commodities exports, and expansions of social programs that reduced poverty and inequality. However, the commodity boom ended, the political right reemerged, and now right-wing populism along with democratic dissatisfaction are increasingly prevalent. In this dissertation, across a series of three papers, I analyze these nuances of contemporary Latin American politics, with a thematic focus on protection. I examine: why governments of different partisan varieties expand or retrench, in contrasting economic environments, social assistance programs that protect against poverty; why the political left's commitment to social assistance precipitated a class-based political backlash that led to the resurgence of the political right; and why individuals experiencing various types of insecurity aim to protect themselves from these threats by supporting attitudes and actors aligned with the authoritarian populist political right. To accomplish this, I utilize a variety of data—at the country and individual levels, as well as varying over time—and empirical approaches, including causal inference strategies. First, I find that the political left, rather than the political right, retrenched social assistance following the end of the commodity boom, due to—I argue—the pressures the left faces from investors to reduce spending during economic downturns, whereas the right is more restricted by domestic opposition to welfare retrenchment. Second, despite these empirical patterns, the left's perceived ideological commitment to redistribution and the lower socioeconomic classes alienated its former, more-privileged constituencies, who supported the political right in greater numbers throughout the 2010s. Third, people experiencing gr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sarah Brooks (Committee Chair); Philipp Rehm (Committee Member); Marcus Kurtz (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Environment and Natural Resources

What accounts for disaster mobilization in marginalized communities? Under what conditions do social movement organizations devote or redirect their limited resources to support the goal of another organization or movement? How do academics engage in disaster research without perpetuating colonial, extractivist practices? In this dissertation, I explore these questions through a study centered on #JustRecovery agroecological mobilization in Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria. I use a mixed-methods approach incorporating: participant observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and content analysis of digital and archival data which I thematically coded and analyzed. In an act of solidarity, I also volunteered on agroecological farms throughout Puerto Rico, participated in brigades rebuilding farms, and connected with various organizations promoting the expansion of agroecology across the island. I begin the dissertation by explaining my decision to pivot from positivist epistemology to critical qualitative research as a means to engage ethically with frontline communities. Second, I support the claims of coloniality expressed by #JustRecovery organizers and the people of Puerto Rico through a historical political economic analysis of agrarian change to explain how the archipelago's modern failed food-system is a byproduct of U.S. colonial rule. Third, I apply a social movement lens to the Our Power Puerto Rico #Just Recovery movement to make the case that disasters merit greater attention in social movement theory, and also to explain the convergence of agroecology and food justice, climate justice, and environmental justice movements using theories of frame alignment, collective identity, and psychological distance. I then draw from the collective agency and community resilience framework to explain the processes of scaling-up agroecology to promote climate resilient, sustainable communities. Using interviews from activists and farmers on the island, I conclude (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kerry Ard (Advisor); Eric Toman (Committee Member); Kendra McSweeney (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Caribbean Studies; Climate Change; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Epistemology; Latin American History; Social Research; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Political Science

Much political science has studied how governments choose to spend money, largely through a literature on the rise of the welfare state. In turn, many study (I) how much revenue must be raised in taxes and (II) from whom, across the income spectrum, these funds must come from. In contrast, this paper studies the political determinants of tax-mix. Decisions to use some tax-instruments over others – be it the income tax or property tax, Value-Added Taxes (VATs) or corporate taxes – not only implicate vertical redistribution within society (redistribution across income-levels), but also horizontal redistribution (redistribution within income-levels) and taxation's efficiency. In turn, tax-mix decisions implicate such vitals as: whether a society raises public revenues in a manner consistent with distributive justice; how much revenue a government is able to raise; and the extent to which raising government revenues will harm the private economy. This dissertation project offers a theory and, consequently, tests by which to understand how tax-mixes are determined across societies. Central to my claim, much political science literature on taxation can be reoriented around the concept of elasticity. Implicitly, many studies argue that citizens prefer taxes that they can most easily avoid paying – either by opting for taxes they believe they can most easily cheat-on without getting caught; selecting taxes on behaviours that they do not engage-in; or pursuing taxes that implicate behaviours from which they can easily “shift away.” In all of the above cases, I make explicit the under-girding concept at play, elasticity. Elasticity informs an individual's preferences over tax policy. These preferences interact with a society's institutions, which determines who has the necessary political power in society so as to attain their (elasticity-driven) tax policy preferences in the form of tax policy outcomes. Understanding why governments pick certain tax-mixes will, then, a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jan Pierskalla (Committee Chair); Philipp Rehm (Advisor); Sara Watson (Advisor) Subjects: Economics; Political Science; Public Policy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Geography

This is a study of the political and economic geography of the relations between contemporary China and South America. The object of my research is the political-economic asymmetry across these transpacific relations. Are they an axis on which to improve social welfare, or an axis of subjugation exacerbating existing political-economic disparities? To answer these questions, I interview Latin American bureaucrats, politicians, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and journalists to gain insight into the logics that guide and shape their exchanges with their Chinese counterparts. As a case study, I focus on the geopolitics of food and China's relations with the region of the Rio de la Plata (Uruguay and Northeastern Argentina). Observing the worrying signs of Latin America's renewed dependence on primary commodity production, I evaluate the merits of characterizing China-Latin America relations as a new form of imperialism or dependency. First, I define these terms and review how they have been mobilized in recent literature to shine light on the more unpleasant dimensions of transpacific relations. Then I set out to find the tell-tale signs of imperialism: the operation of political-economic coercion and state violence in international economic relations. I argue that there is little to be gained from using these terms to explain China-Latin America relations. Instead, I observe novel forms of political-economic exchange that imply a rearticulation of hierarchical international relations. The practices and institutions of China's foreign affairs complex establish new geopolitical and economic imaginaries of a China-centered geopolitical economy and serve as the basis of China's emergent geoeconomic logic. Crucially, these practices and institutions provide formal mechanisms to substantiate otherwise intangible international exchanges, they serve as a material manifestations of China's growing trust in and recognition of partner countries. This mechanism serves as a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Joel Wainwright Dr. (Advisor); Trevor Barnes Dr. (Committee Member); Abril Trigo Dr. (Committee Member); Max Woodworth Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic Theory; Geography; International Relations; Social Research

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2020, Anthropology

This research investigates political and economic issues of inequality and unemployment in Uganda, as manifested in one informal settlement in Kabalagala, and the effect of these issues on HIV. Uganda is one important site to study the intersections of inequality, formal sector unemployment, urbanization, and HIV/AIDS. Contemporary inequality and formal sector unemployment are driven by colonial policies that shaped urban stratification, and postcolonial policies that privileged economic growth over job creation. A central goal was to understand men's risk of HIV in the context of these and other structural and social drivers of risk. This research used an explanatory sequential mixed methods study design, including a pilot study (2016), survey pre-test (2017), and 12 months of fieldwork that began with survey data collection (N = 292) and ended with in-depth interviews (n = 54, a subset of the survey sample). Survey data were analyzed using multiple linear regression, and interview data and field notes were analyzed through thematic analysis. Quantitative data described the patterning of risky sexual behavior (e.g. HIV risk), while qualitative data expanded on these relationships and helped to clarify areas of contention. Men in this study have lower rates of HIV testing, compared to national averages. Men also frequently report defaulting on ART, once they do receive a positive diagnosis and begin treatment. Inequality and unemployment impact their daily lives through experiences of uncertainty that must be managed. Economic instability is important, and when men cannot access resources, they are likely to engage in a variety of strategies to improve their economic status. Men also face myriad vulnerabilities driven by the political-economic context, from housing instability to incarceration. This work contributes to the anthropological literature on the political economy of health, HIV, vulnerability, and social resilience. Men's experiences of HIV and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Janet McGrath Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Lee Hoffer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jill Korbin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Aloen Townsend Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Public Health

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Political Science

Pre-electoral coalitions have been largely ignored in Presidential systems. In this dissertation I study the case of Mexico where since 1991 a pre-electoral coalition has been formed by two non-contiguous parties; the far-right party (PAN) and the far-left party (PRD). Despite dramatic differences in policy agendas, they have won important elections at the state and municipal level. The creation of this coalition creates a puzzle that is not addressed by existing theories such as spatial models, party alignment, incumbency advantage, federalism, electoral budget cycles and ideological expenditures. The first chapter of this dissertation answers the following questions: Will voters support their preferred party despite the non-contiguous coalition? Will voters punish coalition members if it breaks while in office? Will coalitions stay together through multiple electoral cycles? This chapter develops a Game Theoretical Bayesian model to analyze voters' electoral behavior. The main finding is a separating equilibrium in the multiple-period game. Reputation effects will lead to a long-term collaboration while in the short-term the coalition will break. Voters support these coalitions if they stay together once in office and implement a policy platform that maximizes their payoffs. The second chapter introduces the concept of "Partial Alignment'', created by a pre-electoral coalition in power, and its effects on resource allocation. Do municipalities where pre-electoral coalition governments win an election receive significantly more or fewer resources from the federal and state level governments than those where the coalition loses? The theoretical answer is ambiguous: Partial alignment could lead to more resources in an effort to keep the party in power - even as part of a coalition - or fewer resource due to the desire to stop sharing power in order to govern alone. Analysis uses a Regression Discontinuity Design with a matched dataset that combines data on municipali (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sarah Brooks (Committee Chair); Jan Pierskalla (Advisor); Paul Healy (Advisor) Subjects: Economics; Latin American Studies; Political Science

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2019, Economics

Medicare and Medicaid are U.S. Federal health insurance programs established in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. They provide coverage to the aged population (65+), low-income individuals, and to other subsets of the U.S. population. After reviewing the foundations of Medicare/Medicaid, I analyze the political economy of Members of Congress vote choices on the original 1965 Medicare/Medicaid law. I find evidence that the number of doctors per 100,000 individuals in a state is a strong predictor of vote choice and there is statistically significant interaction between percentage of Black Americans and the South. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that party alignment of constituencies and geographic region played roles in persuading Republicans in party-contested states to defect. The behavior of these defectors is dependent on their party alignment and the party alignment of the majority in Congress. To assess the strength of the model across time and legislation, I run a fully interacted, pooled OLS regression on both the 1965 legislation, and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. I find the effects of hospitals do not hold across time. However, I find evidence target populations remain insignificant in both datasets, suggesting they are not strong influencers of vote choice.

Committee: Melissa Thomasson (Advisor); Gregory Niemesh (Committee Member); Deborah Fletcher (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Health Care; Political Science; Public Policy

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2019, Political Science

The rise of China has become one of the central political phenomenon of the early 21st century. The most populous country on Earth, China's unprecedented economic transformation has elevated the country to a position of economic and military power that is beginning to rival that of the preeminent United States. This thesis explores the question of whether or not China is a 'revisionist' power that seeks to establish a new 'status quo' in international relations and the governance of the global economy. For the past two centuries, this 'status quo' has been determined and upheld by the powers of the British Empire, and successively the United States, and has witnessed the establishment of a capitalistic global economy and an international Liberal order predicated on free trade and multilateralism. This thesis first explores the nature of international leadership, power transitions, the concept of Thucydides' Trap, and historical developments and changes within the Liberal order to provide necessary context to understanding China's growing role in international affairs. From here, I discuss the U.S.-China economic conflict that has developed under the Trump administration, assess the nature of China's orientation towards international trade, and analyze Chinese policy surrounding foreign aid spending and the $1 trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative launched by President Xi Jinping. I conclude with a discussion emphasizing the need for improved understanding and consideration of history in the U.S. orientation towards China, and argue both that the U.S. is putting stress on the core practices and principles of the Liberal order, and that by remaining committed to free trade and multilateralism, the U.S. and China can avoid the Thucydides' Trap and reduce the possibility of future conflict.

Committee: Takaaki Suzuki (Advisor) Subjects: Asian Studies; Economics; History; International Relations; Political Science

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

This dissertation investigates the interrelated political economies of capital punishment and knowledge production, both in the material spatial context of sites of execution and in geographic, academic literature. My analysis of these relations proceeds through an epistemologically fluid dialectic approach that examines both the circuitous material and abstract commodities that cycle through capital punishment space, and the state of knowledge production in geography about the issue, practice and process of capital punishment. This dual focus has allowed me to simultaneously produce knowledge about the formal political economies of execution processes within capitalist social formations, and produce an understanding of the epistemological processes that have directed the discipline's engagement with capital punishment and other social issues through positivistic and more radical/critical approaches. Consequently, in both directions of this dual focus, I can therefore explore the relations between both the material and abstract distancing of alienation and the market logics that undergird processes of differentiation and valuation within societies operating through a capitalist mode of production. Fundamental to the study is how I have addressed questions surrounding how the killing of capital punishment is made to work in the double sense by operating through a constructed fluid epistemological framework that allows my analysis to float meaningfully between historical-materialist, post-structural, and prefigurative approaches to the world. In other words, I, in part, take up the approach of historical materialism, which has a long tradition of utility in examining political economy and its associated knowledges. Crucially, however, while historical materialism has typically examined the changing ways in which humans produce and have access to the necessities of life, this research inverts that focus. Here, the inversion of historical materialism, through post-struc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James A. Tyner (Advisor); Christopher Post (Committee Member); Joshua Inwood (Committee Member); Joshua Stacher (Committee Member); Babacar M'Baye (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Sociology

Finance plays a markedly greater role in our lives than in the recent past. This “financialization” process in which more value is accumulated within financial channels has enormous implications. Financialization appropriates more resources and drains money from productive use, it reallocates money from labor to capital, and occasional crises cause serious socio-economic disruption. The power of financial capital is a core feature of contemporary capitalism. For as much attention as financialization receives though we know surprisingly little about it empirically. Most studies focus on the United States, the United Kingdom, and a handful of European states. Our limited geographic scope is compounded by the use of inconsistent and non-comparable measures. There has also been less focus on explaining this transformation comparatively. In this dissertation, I address these issues in an in-depth study of financialization. I do so with a unique firm-level database I have constructed with information on more than 47,000 non-financial and 12,000 financial sector companies in the 37 largest economies. This covers firms in diverse contexts from the global capitalist core, “development states” in East Asia, semi-peripheral economies like Argentina to South Africa, as well as emerging powers like China and India. I assess financialization in these countries from 1991 to 2014 – a period I call the “long 1990s” At the beginning of this period, neoliberal architects optimistically promoted global financial integration and openness. By the end of it, the world was marred from the devastating consequences of financial “exuberance.” In six chapters, I investigate the causes and consequences of financialization in this historic era. Following an introductory chapter, I detail my dataset, propose measures, and stylistically showcase them in Chapter 2. My results show unevenness in financialization measures across time and place and that firms with international operations are mo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tim Bartley (Committee Co-Chair); Vincent Roscigno (Committee Co-Chair); Rachel Dwyer (Committee Member); Michael Vuolo (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2018, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis examines the role that federal land policy played in the settlement and political development of the Northwest Territory from 1780 to 1802. In the waning years of the American Revolution the United States sought to acquire and use the lands of the trans-Appalachian West as a fund for extinguishing its public debt. The claims of the individual states and of Native Americans would be transferred to the United States, which would then exchange those lands for Continental securities. By placing emphasis on public creditors, Congress deliberately ignored the interests of actual settlers, including many who were squatting on these federal lands. At first the Confederation Congress adopted a policy of uniform land sales overseen by the federal government, but with disappointing results. In 1787 Congress decided to privatize western settlement by selling large amounts of land to private companies at a discount, who would then resell the land to actual settlers for a profit. This was also a disappointment, as these land companies experienced a myriad of problems from Native American violence to legal disputes with settlers, all of which had to be solved by the federal government. Prompted by western settlers, including squatters, the federal government resumed the responsibility of western settlement. This thesis also shows how federal power was used to influence local politics. New laws allowed for squatters to negotiate with federal officials over the lands they wanted. One official, Thomas Worthington, used the influence he had in these negotiations to incorporate the squatters into his own political interest. During the statehood movement of 1801-1802, Worthington was able to link this interest to the national Republican Party. The mobilization of his interest and the introduction of partisanship into the movement allowed Worthington to successfully accomplish statehood for Ohio.

Committee: Brian Schoen (Advisor); Sarah Kinkel (Committee Member); Chester Pach (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Music Ethnomusicology

This thesis examines the relationship between hip-hop culture, urban geography, and politics in Detroit, Michigan. I begin by discussing the work of the hip-hop music and arts collective the Raiz Up collective from Southwest Detroit. After discussing the political situation out of which this group of artists emerged, I describe how the Raiz Up works in their community to mediate the spatial antagonisms spawned by the city's urban development policies. Specifically, I argue that the work of this collective articulates the structural interconnections of issues separated by space and time. Next, I write about visual artist Tyree Guyton's neighborhood installation the Heidelberg Project and the hip hop and theater group Complex Movements' piece “Beware of the Dandelions.” My analysis of these two pieces frames them as critical aesthetic and political interventions into urban design itself. Additionally, I argue that these pieces gesture towards alternative political possibilities regarding urban spatial organization. Finally, I analyze the track “Detroit vs. Everybody” by a variety of Detroit hip-hop artists and the work of rapper Danny Brown. My discussion of these songs emphasizes the extent to which they critique media narratives of Detroit's “revitalization.” Additionally, I suggest that these tracks articulate the precarity that characterizes marginalized subjects' movements through space.

Committee: Sidra Lawrence PhD (Advisor); Katherine Meizel PhD (Committee Member); Clayton Rosati PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Music