The founders and officers of the Virginia Military Institute, one of the few American engineering schools in the antebellum period, embedded a particular engineering culture into the curriculum and discipline of the school. This occurred, in some cases, as a consequence of struggles by the elite of western Virginia to gain a greater share of political power in the commonwealth and by the officers of VMI for authority within the field of higher education. In other cases, the engineering culture was crafted as a deliberate strategy within the above struggles. Among the features embedded was the key feature of requiring the subordination of one’s own local and individual interests and identities (class, regional, denominational, etc.) to the service of the commonwealth and nation. This particular articulation of service meant the performance of “practical” and “useful” work of internal improvements for the development and defense of the commonwealth and the nation. The students learned and were to employ an engineering knowledge derived from fundamental physical and mathematical principles, as opposed to a craft knowledge learned on the job. To carry out such work and to even develop the capacity to subordinate their own interests, the cadets were disciplined into certain necessary traits, including moral character, industriousness, selfrestraint, self-discipline, and subordination to authority. To be an engineer was to be a particular kind of man. The above traits were predicated upon the engineers being white men, who, in a new “imagined fraternity” of equal white men, were innately independent, in contrast to white women and blacks, who were innately dependent. Having acquired a mathematically-intensive engineering education and the character necessary to perform engineering work, the graduates of VMI who became engineers were to enter their field as middle-class professionals who could claim an objective knowledge and a disinterested service to the commonwealth and nation, rather than to just their own career aspirations. / Ph. D.

No class has created more controversy than the middle class and nowhere has it produced more controversy than in Latin America. No class has been so poorly understood. No class has been so weakly analyzed in historical terms. Moreover, no class has had so many preconceptions and "myths" attached to it. I try to fill this historiographic gap by looking at the construction of empleado identities, as a part of the middle class, between the 1930s and the 1950s in Bogotá, Colombia. By using a diversity of primary sources - diaries, empleado handbooks, manuals, employment forms, historical statistics, government publications, personal archives, oral history and a set of novels - this thesis attempts to look at how empleado identities were "made" by means of the combination of the historical structures and the experiences lived at the very center of daily life. / Master of Arts

Using data for 93 countries from 1972 through 2001 in cross-national analysis, this study compares the relative economic strength of a country's middle-class with its civil liberties performance and its history of domestic and external conflict. For purposes of this analysis, the relative strength of a country's middle-class is determined by multiplying the square root of a country's gross domestic product per capita by the percentage of income distributed to the middle 60 % of the population (middle class income share). Comparisons between this measure of per capita income distributed (PCID) and several other indicators show the strength of the relationship between PCID and civil liberties performance and domestic and external conflict. In the same manner, comparisons are made for the middle class income share (MCIS) alone. The countries are also divided by level of PCID into 3 world classes of 31 countries each for additional comparisons. In tests using bivariate correlations, the relationships between PCID and MCIS are statistically significant with better civil liberties performance and fewer internal conflicts. With multivariate regression the relationship between PCID and civil liberties performance is statistically significant but not for PCID and internal conflict. As expected, in both correlations and regression between PCID and external conflict, variables related to power dominate. However, when the countries are divided into world classes by level of PCID, the eleven countries with the highest level of PCID have had no internal or external conflict since 1972. Moreover, there is no within group conflict for countries in either the upper or middle classes of countries based on their level of PCID. The between group conflict does include democracies.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The Chinese middle class will be central to the continued sustainable development of China. This paper investigates the role of the middle class in the development of individual cities utilizing the Solow growth model. The paper breaks down the Solow growth model into the individual factors of production and calculates values for them over the period 2000 to 2010. Then using the data and the Cobb-Douglas production function shows that, for both Shanghai and Wuhan, total factor productivity is decreasing over the period. The size of the middle class in both cities is also calculated using a relative definition in order to compare its growth to the change in total factor productivity. The study shows that the middle class have yet to play a significant part in the economic development of Shanghai or Wuhan. / published_or_final_version / China Development Studies / Master / Master of Arts in China Development Studies

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Anthropology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

The Party-state's popular legitimacy is difficult to assess. This study aims to do so via a two- step methodology that aims to reveal the political belief sets through which the Chinese public evaluates the present regime and imagines possible alternatives. I focus upon the emerging middle class, as conceptualized by the Party-state, because the Party-state views this segment's support as a priority for its legitimation efforts. And I focus upon Beijing, because theory and evidence suggests that Beijing's emerging middle class should be especially persuaded by the Party-state's ideological work. Ideological diversity discovered in Beijing is a baseline of what one would hypothesize to exist elsewhere in China. First, I distil the main ideological traditions to which the emerging middle class is exposed - including Official Ideology, Liberalism, New Left and Political Confucianism - down into their essential convictions. Second, via Q Methodology, I present statements representing these distilled convictions to a sample of the emerging middle class and ask them, using these statements, to answer: 'What should the guiding values and principles of Chinese politics be?' From the patterns of their responses, I elucidate the variety of ways they evaluate the question - and hence, evaluate the legitimacy of the present regime. Four discourses emerge. Social Welfarism and Liberal Idealism form orthogonal boundaries between which most members of the emerging middle class situate themselves. Regression analysis suggests that the former is the default view, but a variety of factors can rotate people toward the latter. Authoritarian Reformism and Critical Realism are minority discourses that reveal more radical possibilities. My research suggests that the Party-state's efforts to contain public conceptions have had mixed success. The range of public political preferences is sufficiently constrained that a single Party can coherently claim to represent their fundamental shared interests. A corollary finding is that the 'middle class' is emerging into the role the Party-state envisages for it, as a stabilizing force. However, while its members may be 'allies of the state', only some are devotees, in the sense that they share substantially in the Official Ideological perspective. The bounded diversity of ideological discourses reveals the exquisite complexity of the Party-state's legitimation task, and many potential pitfalls and missteps. The present study reveals both the reach of the state (i.e., a bounded discourse weighted toward a Social Welfarist default) and its limits (i.e., popular drift toward problematic alternatives). More broadly, I find that popular legitimacy can be subjected to direct investigation. I show that while state-centric approaches to investigating China are compelling for their explanatory power, a balanced approach offers richer insight.

Thesis (DPhil) -- Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study attempts to reach some conclusions about the possibility of the South African democracy to endure. It does so through entering into the so-called preconditions for democracy field, concretely, by the observation of the changes in and the composition of the South African middle class as a feature of democratic consolidation. Middle classes are regarded as an important political actor in democratisation and it is difficult to fmd a stable democracy without a well-developed and large middle class. Actually, the democratisation movements have mostly been led by middle classes. Moreover, the size of the middle class in a particular society is also indicative of the level of income inequality, which is another important indicator for the success of democratisation. From a theoretical perspective, the study presents the different existing approaches to democratisation in general, and to middle class democracy in particular. Then, it focuses on a case study: South Africa. The variables for the research then are, "middle class" as an independent variable; and "democratic consolidation" as a dependent variable. The hypothesis that links them therefore is as follows: The larger the middle class, the greater the chance for the consolidation of democracy. From an empirical perspective the research tests the above hypothesis by making use of extensive quantitative data. Both variables are then operationalised and their tendencies of growth are measured, presented and explained. Middle class is operationalised in terms of occupation. Consolidated democracy is operationalised in terms of political tolerance and trust in the institutions. Political tolerance refers to the procedural part of democracy, whereas trust relates to the substantive dimension of democracy. The major fin<iings arrived at are that, on one hand the middle class in South Africa is increasing in size and incorporating previously excluded sectors - mainly Blacks - but, on the other hand, democracy seems to be consolidating from a procedural point of view - increase in political tolerance -, but not from a substantive one - decrease in trust in the institutions. Consequently, the original hypothesis is reformulated as follows: An increase in the middle class in the first years of democracy indicates that democracy is consolidating "procedlfrally ". Against the background of these fmdings, room is left for further research that will provide information about whether a democracy can consolidate only procedurally or whether the substantive dimension of democracy is essential for successful consolidation. Further research will also confirm whether or not the recent increase in trust during 1999 signifies a real turning-point or whether it is due to other reasons. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie poog om tot 'n aantal gevolgtrekkings te kom oor die waarskynlikheid dat die Suid-Afrikaanse demokrasie in stand sal bly. Dit is benader deur 'n ondersoek na die voorvereistes vir demokrasie en, konkreet, deur die waarneming van veranderings in die samestelling van die Suid-Afrikaanse middelstand as 'n verskynsel van demokratiese konsolidasie. Die middelstand word as 'n belangrike politieke rolspeler in demokratisering beskou en dit is moeilik om 'n voorbeeld van 'n stabiele demokrasie waar daar nie 'n groot middel~tand is nie, te vind. In werklikheid is demokratiese bewegings meestal deur die middelstand gelei. Verder is die omvang van die middelstand binne 'n besondere gemeenskap ook aanduidend van die vlak van inkomste-ongelykheid, wat 'n verdere belangrike aanduider vir die sukses van demokratisering is. Vanuit 'n teoretiese perspektief hied die studie die verskillende bestaande benaderings tot demokratisering in die algemeen, en tot middelstand-demokrasie in besonder, aan. Dan verskuif die aandag na 'n gevallestudie van Suid-Afrika. Die veranderlikes vir die navorsing is "middelstand" as onafhanklike veranderlike en "demokratiese konsolidering" as afhanklike veranderlike. Die hipotese waardeur hulle in verband gestel word, is as volg: Hoe grater die middelstand, hoe grater die waarskynlikheid vir die konsolidasie van demokrasie. Vanuit 'n empiriese perspektief toets die navorsing die bogenoemde hipotese deur gebruik te maak van uitgebreide kwantitatiewe data. Albei veranderlikes word ge-operasionaliseer en hul groeitendense word gemeet, aangebied en verduidelik. Middelstand word in terme van beroep ge-operasionaliseer. Gekonsolideerde demokrasie word in terme van politieke verdraagsaamheid en vertroue in instellings ge-operasionaliseer. Politieke verdraagsaamheid bon verband met die prosedurele aspek van demokrasie, terwyl vertroue verband bon met die substantiewe dimensie van demokrasie. Die vemaamste bevindings waartoe gekom is, is, aan die een kant, dat die middelstand in Suid-Afrika besig is om uit te brei en voorheen uitgeslote sektore - veral Swartes - te inkorporeer en, aan die ander kant, dat demokrasie besig is om vanuit 'n prosedurele oogpunt - toename in politieke verdraagsaamheid - te konsolideer, maar nie vanuit 'n substantiewe oogpunt - afname van vertroue in die instellings - nie. Gevolglik word die oorspronklike hipotese soos volg herformuleer: 'n Toename in die middelstand gedurende die eerste }are van demokrasie dui aan dat die demokrasie besig is om ''prosedureel" te konsolideer. Teen die agtergrond van die bevindings is daar ruimte vir verdere navorsing wat inligting sal verskaf aangaande die moontlikheid daarvan dat 'n demokrasie net maar prosedureel kan konsolideer, en of die substantiewe dimensie essensieel is vir suksesvolle konsolidasie. Verdere navorsing sou ook kon bepaal of die voorafgaande toename in vertroue gedurende 1999 'n werklike ommekeer aandui, en of dit aan ander redes toegeskryf moet word.