Post Keynesian Economics (PKE) is at a cross road. The academic climate at universities has become more hostile to survival and the mainstream has become more diverse internally. Moreover, a heterodox camp of diverse groups of non-mainstream economists is forming. The debate on the future of PKE has so far focussed on the relation to the mainstream. This paper argues that this is not an important issue for the future of PKE. The debate has overlooked the dialectics between academic hegemony and economic (and social) stability. The important question is, whether PKE offers useful explanations of the ongoing socio-economic transformation. PKE has generated valuable insights but it offers little on important real world phenomena such as supply-side phenomena like the increasing use of ICT and the globalisation of production, social issues like precarisation and the polarization of income distribution or ecological challenges like climate change. It is these issues that will decide the future of PKE. (author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Swedish school system is today victim of facing competition. Today sees the school leadership the students like customers whom they depend to operate their school. But I have asked myself, what will be the new students see and how much this spectacle in both money and time that project will cost for the municipality and school teachers. The question is if whether the school will be better when the competition becomes school or just better marketed? I'm interested in how clearly ideologies emerge in schools brochures if we study them at critically and analytically way. I will study how the independent schools present themselves and what ideas they describe. Can we see the ideological arguments that Reagan and Thatcher had in the 80s who proved their controlled Swedish politicians argued in the 90s in the published material from the Swedish Independent schools today? Independent schools can be seen as vanguards in the Swedish school policy. The Neoliberal winds blowing can probably be best reflected by the private sector in pursuit of the student base. At the same time, the independent schools on the side of the ideologies that best describe the Neoliberal doctrine. I'm interested in how and how societal change is implemented and how clear ideologies reflected in school materials in their struggle to become winners in the Swedish context of market adjustment. I will be studying the brochures from an ideology critical approach that highlights the ideological formulations that can be traced back to the basic ideology.

<p>"We Can Learn to Mother Ourselves": The Queer Survival of Black Feminism 1968-1996 addresses the questions of mothering and survival from a queer, diasporic literary perspective, arguing that the literary practices of Black feminists Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Alexis De Veaux and Barbara Smith enable a counternarrative to a neoliberal logic that criminalizes Black mothering and the survival of Black people outside and after their utility to capital. Treating Audre Lorde and June Jordan as primary theorists of mothering and survival, and Alexis De Veaux and Barbara Smith as key literary historical figures in the queer manifestation of Black feminist modes of literary production, this dissertation uses previously unavailable archival material, and queer of color critique and critical Black diasporic theoretical approaches to create an intergenerative reading practice. An intergenerative reading practice interrupts the social reproduction of meaning and value across time, and places untimely literary moments and products in poetic relationship to each other in order to reveal the possibility of another meaning of life. Ultimately this dissertation functions as a sample narrative towards the alternate meaning of life that the poetic breaks of Black feminist literary production in the queer spaces of counter-cultural markets, classrooms, autonomous publishing collectives make possible, concluding that mothering is indeed a reflexive and queer way of reading the present in the service of a substantively different future in which our outlawed love survives.</p> / Dissertation

<p>The global diffusion of neoliberal economic policies is one of the most significant events in modern history. This research applies current knowledge on policy diffusion to the analysis of the diffusion of two major neoliberal urban policies among Chinese cities, namely land banking and privatization of urban infrastructures. Both policies are believed to have contributed greatly to the rapid growth of China's urban economy, and reflect the idea of capitalizing a city's tangible assets and utilizing market institutions to manage them so as to achieve economic gains. </p><p>Borrowing insights from existing diffusion theories developed by scholars from different background, this research explores the determinants of the policy innovation decisions by utilizing three theoretical models: (1) The internal determinants model, which presumes that the factors causing a local state to adopt a new policy are political, economic, and social characteristics of the local state. (2) The regional diffusion model, which posits that the geographical proximity affects diffusion by encouraging emulation and competition among neighboring states. (3) Institutional diffusion model, which proposes that a new policy may be adopted to prove the legitimacy of the organization, to cope with environment uncertainties by modeling others, to conform to the will of other organizations on which the adopters depend. </p><p>This study emphasizes the role of the Chinese states, both at the central and local levels, in building neoliberal market institutions. It pays particular attention to the effects of provincial governments' pressure, and shows that local states' dependency on higher level authorities has limited the effectiveness of such interventions. Moreover, I highlight the influence of horizontal intergovernmental relations, such as competition and emulation, on the diffusion processes, and argue that it is an important factor that has promoted the national-wide expansion of neoliberal policies. The results of this study enrich our understanding on how local policy makings are influenced by complex intergovernmental relations, and how do local states balance between local economic interests and political loyalty to higher levels when they formulate local development agenda.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis aims to problematize the assumptions behind the glorification of civil society as a new and progressive actor in politics along with their political and ideological implications. It is argued that the assumptions behind the glorification of civil society are conceptually misleading and politically disabling. The portrayal of &ldquo / civil society&rdquo / or &ldquo / global civil society&rdquo / as a homogenous as well as inherently democratic and peaceful sphere that is opposed to an equally homogenous power-seeking state has emerged as a necessity for attributing emancipatory meanings to the concept. One of the most important implications of this conceptualization has been the taming of politics since the state, which is conventionally understood as the main site for political struggle, has apparently been devalued as a respectable political target to be fought over. Interestingly, the taming of politics through a glorified civil society has become a popular discourse shared and reproduced by both the New Right and certain sections of the Left. The thesis sheds light to the development of such a discourse at the global level as well as in Turkey within the context of the rise and spread of neoliberal globalization.

The debates over the structure of the Turkish government in the context of Public Administration Reform that point to restructuration of state and/or to re-organization of social relations between state, market and &amp / #8216 / civil society&amp / #8217 / have gained momentum especially since the arrival of draft law about Main Principles of Public Administration and Restructuring of Public Administration to the Turkish Parliament. This thesis attempts to analyze the debate on recent public administration reform in Turkey in the contexts of the socio-economic transformations of new capitalism/neo-liberalism within the notion of decentralization and of how/in what ways the neoliberal policies have been legitimated within the specific historical context of Turkish public administration reform. The purpose of the study is to understand the connection between the legal text of public sector reform and the social context in which these legal regulations find their meanings. For this aim, the debate on public administration reform in the Turkish Parliament was argued as a discursive battlefield where the demands and interests of the conflicting social groups &amp / #8216 / clash&amp / #8217 / with each other. Therefore, this study concentrates its attention on the critical analysis of the discursive acts of the Justice and Development Party government, and of the Republican People&amp / #8217 / s Party on reform for understanding how both authority/legitimacy and resistance/de-legitimacy are (re)produced within the parliamentary debates/discourse.

This study aims to understand and explain World Bank&rsquo / s changing approach to poverty since 1990. Established as a development institution and as one of the leading members of development community, the World Bank has nearly turned out to be a poverty alleviation institution especially from late 1990s on. This change is a reflection of a process in which the Bank shapes its approach to poverty not only in accordance with its own goals but also in the framework of what happens in wider social, economic and political spheres of which the Bank is a part as a subject that both shapes and is shaped by them to a certain extent. Consequently, a remarkable change is observed in the Bank&rsquo / s approach, and this process of change is investigated in this study in two sub-periods that are characterized by ruptures in continuity. The first period more or less between 1990 and 1997 is characterized by the Bank&rsquo / s neoliberal approach to poverty, which mainly assumes poverty as a complementary element of structural adjustment programs in countries they are implemented. The second period from 1997 up to present is characterized, on the other hand, by a &ldquo / third way&rdquo / approach to poverty which mainly assumes poverty-as-social-exclusion as an indispensable central element of a renewed hegemonic project. In this study, the traces of these ruptures and the continuity in the Bank&rsquo / s approach are followed through their reflections on Turkey by making a close reading of the Bank&rsquo / s documents about poverty in Turkey.

This thesis analyzes the evolution of European social policy via focusing on the unfolding contentions between two different notions that disagree over Europe&rsquo / s direction regarding the best social-economic system in Europe. Taking its point of departure in the ratification crisis and the impasse surrounding the Constitutional Treaty, the thesis argues that the contrasting interpretations of the Treaty and the attendant cleavages in the European polity are illustrations of such ongoing ideological struggles among alternative paradigms and approaches. Naming these contending approaches as &ldquo / project of neoliberalism&rdquo / and &ldquo / project of regulated capitalism&rdquo / , the evolution of European social policy is investigated with a focus on interplays between these projects / the self-transformation of the projects in the course of integration / and the relations between economic and social governance in the construction of an &ldquo / ever closer Union&rdquo / . To this purpose, the thesis theoretically employs Polanyian conceptual framework of &ldquo / double movement&rdquo / alongside theoretical approaches of Streeck, Hooghe&amp / Marks, and Pochet that view the evolution of European social policy in conflictual encounters between two opposing notions. Against this theoretical background, the thesis surveys the integration history from the Treaty of Rome until the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. It concludes that the European social policy has evolved within interplays among projects of neoliberalism and regulated capitalism and there has always been an asymmetric relationship between the economic and social governance in Europe as the social governance has always had a secondary and even a subservient position with regard to economic governance in the European polity.

The aim of this thesis is put forward a critical inquiry into the new advent neoliberal publicity and the spatiality which brought forth by this emergent publicity in Ankara thereby interrogating some key concepts such as neoliberalism, neoliberal urbanization, public space and publicity. &ldquo / The Renovation Project of Ankara Historical City Center&rdquo / will be assessed owing to constitute a model for understanding the tendencies in the planning of public spaces of Ankara for the last two decades. Considering the vast area which will be subjected to the renovation project, the borders of the study area is confined to &ldquo / Special Project Area: Hacibayram Mosque and Its Environs&rdquo / .

The main aim of the thesis is to analyse the recent socio-spatial patterns of Istanbul, in which squatter areas on publicly-owned land (gecekondu) and old historical centre of the city are subjected to regeneration projects, under the impact of making Istanbul a purified place for the significant social classes via exclusion of the others. The formulations of Henri Lefebvre for analysing the production of (social) space are used as the conceptual framework of the thesis. To reveal the case study, the recent urban regeneration projects in Istanbul, a wide range of qualitative data collection techniques and methodology, documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, participant observations, which will pave a way to understand the complex relations among social and spatial formations, are used. According to the analysis on the acceleration of urban regeneration projects in the city of Istanbul, the thesis argues two main points: Firstly, the specificity of urbanisation period in Istanbul after 2000 is characterised with the strong role of the central state, mainly MHA. Secondly, the people, who are living in the gecekondu areas and old historical centres in the inner city are not only evicted from their living spaces, they are also socially and spatially excluded from the city centres.