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This dissertation examines the effect of stock ownership on individuals' political behavior. I analyzed not only individual-level data to examine the effect of stock ownership on their economic knowledge and policy preferences but also macro-level data to analyze the change of ideology and relationship between presidential approval rate, macroeconomic indicators such as stock market indexes, unemployment rate, inflation rate, and consumer confidence. Additionally, I analyzed how the media treated stock market news politically over the past three decades. To understand how the traditional media treats Wall Street news over the decades, I analyzed the New York Times from 1981 to 2012 and USA Today from 1991 to 2012 by Wordfish and topic models and found that Wall Street news became political news, especially during the economic crisis and presidential election years. Despite conservative policy analysts predicting that owning stocks makes people's political behavior change and that stockowners will support the Republican Party, I find that the effect of stock ownership is different between direct and indirect stockowners. Because a lot of indirect stockowners own stocks just because their companies provided employees stock-related products such as a 401(k) as part of their benefits, indirect stockowners are less active than direct stockowners in terms of their financial managements. The policy attitudes are also different depending on the policies themselves. That is, the stockowners' effect is conditional. I also find that even though stockowners are familiar with the current stock market conditions, their knowledge about other macroeconomic indicators at is the same level as non-stockowners. / text

Science studies contends that scientific knowledge is produced through social and geographical processes. This dissertation applies this insight to the production of economic knowledge, specifically addressing how the Anti-Corn Law League, an organization that campaigned against the protectionist Corn Laws in Britain in the 1830s and 40s, made economic truth. The argument is organized in five chapters. The Introduction discusses the key theoretical ideas from science studies – controversy, consensus, and credibility – that later chapters use in interpreting the Anti-Corn Law campaign. Chapter II supplies the social and intellectual context of the Anti-Corn Law movement, showing how its origins in Manchester shaped its meaning, and how uncertainty about the benefits of free trade compelled Leaguers to present a persuasive case for it. Chapter III explores how the League’s public meetings were conducted, arguing that economic knowledge was produced through the processes of presenting and authenticating testimony, in which mass assent, expressed through various imaginaries of the nation, functioned as a rhetorical voucher of truth. Chapter IV examines a case in which assent was not attained, and the means through which the League sought to maintain credibility. It is argued that the League depicted itself as trustworthy according to assumptions society shared about what counted as knowledge and honesty, assumptions that constituted what can be called a cultural map of credibility. The Conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the thesis. It explicitly relates the study to the literature on the geographies of science, and elaborates on how geographical imaginations are inscribed in the process of knowledge production.

Science studies contends that scientific knowledge is produced through social and geographical processes. This dissertation applies this insight to the production of economic knowledge, specifically addressing how the Anti-Corn Law League, an organization that campaigned against the protectionist Corn Laws in Britain in the 1830s and 40s, made economic truth. The argument is organized in five chapters. The Introduction discusses the key theoretical ideas from science studies – controversy, consensus, and credibility – that later chapters use in interpreting the Anti-Corn Law campaign. Chapter II supplies the social and intellectual context of the Anti-Corn Law movement, showing how its origins in Manchester shaped its meaning, and how uncertainty about the benefits of free trade compelled Leaguers to present a persuasive case for it. Chapter III explores how the League’s public meetings were conducted, arguing that economic knowledge was produced through the processes of presenting and authenticating testimony, in which mass assent, expressed through various imaginaries of the nation, functioned as a rhetorical voucher of truth. Chapter IV examines a case in which assent was not attained, and the means through which the League sought to maintain credibility. It is argued that the League depicted itself as trustworthy according to assumptions society shared about what counted as knowledge and honesty, assumptions that constituted what can be called a cultural map of credibility. The Conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the thesis. It explicitly relates the study to the literature on the geographies of science, and elaborates on how geographical imaginations are inscribed in the process of knowledge production.

Science studies contends that scientific knowledge is produced through social and geographical processes. This dissertation applies this insight to the production of economic knowledge, specifically addressing how the Anti-Corn Law League, an organization that campaigned against the protectionist Corn Laws in Britain in the 1830s and 40s, made economic truth. The argument is organized in five chapters. The Introduction discusses the key theoretical ideas from science studies – controversy, consensus, and credibility – that later chapters use in interpreting the Anti-Corn Law campaign. Chapter II supplies the social and intellectual context of the Anti-Corn Law movement, showing how its origins in Manchester shaped its meaning, and how uncertainty about the benefits of free trade compelled Leaguers to present a persuasive case for it. Chapter III explores how the League’s public meetings were conducted, arguing that economic knowledge was produced through the processes of presenting and authenticating testimony, in which mass assent, expressed through various imaginaries of the nation, functioned as a rhetorical voucher of truth. Chapter IV examines a case in which assent was not attained, and the means through which the League sought to maintain credibility. It is argued that the League depicted itself as trustworthy according to assumptions society shared about what counted as knowledge and honesty, assumptions that constituted what can be called a cultural map of credibility. The Conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the thesis. It explicitly relates the study to the literature on the geographies of science, and elaborates on how geographical imaginations are inscribed in the process of knowledge production. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Topic of work is an intersubjectivity of economic knowledge. Work is descriving the process, how is intersubjective economic knowledge may be manifested and legitimized in speech by lay individuals. In general, knowledge is presented as created, redacted and legitimized during the process of speech as an ongoing activity, intersubjective symbols are used as tools to proclaim itself. In the theoretical part, broad overview of sociological theories of knowledge are presented, and the research question was conceptualized by the terms of constructivist approach of Berger and Luckmann. Lay knowledge was manifested as mix of referring four modes of reasoning: economical rationality, societal rationality, habitual and doxic knowledge, discourses. Overemphasizing one of the mods leads to reducing the legitimity of manifestation, the process of balancing between modes is described. In addition, paper proposes suggestion of differences in intersubjective knowledge between Ukraine and Czechs, and discusses the possibilities of further research.