Neoliberalism as a paradigm can be defined as the political economic framework of ideas of the current times which advocates for, privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation, ‘free markets’ and supporting of political individualism. As members of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, and due to their economic dependence on the Western world, developing countries have been obligated to implement the neoliberal paradigm within their domestic terrain. Most African peoples are poor, live in dire conditions and are unable to function in a neoliberal context, as they are excluded from economic participation in their countries, due to a lack of resources, income, and a lack of skills and qualifications to participate in the market or in the neoliberal model as a whole. The tendency of the neoliberal paradigm to extend its hand to non-market forces such as in the provisioning of education, has led to the education service being inaccessible to those who need it the most. The paper seeks to find ways in which the influence of the neoliberal paradigm could be minimised on a sectoral level, focusing on the education sector. This research paper utilizes the Qualitative research approach as it studies a complex phenomenon and concepts. It is a ‘Desk-top study’ which focuses on ‘document analyses’. It is exploratory, and utilizes the case study design, to explore the education sector of two African countries, namely: South Africa and Rwanda. It explores international laws, conventions, government documents, reports, journals, articles and other documentation to examine the phenomenon. It seeks to determine the extent and success behind the phenomena of government intervention in the education sector of these two countries in their resistance of the influence of the neoliberal paradigm in their education sector, to determine the possibility of African countries in minimising the influence of the neoliberal paradigm on a sectoral level. It sources data from the internet, library and bookstores and its data types are: past and present literature, in particular: secondary data (books and journals) and other publications. The argument that the paper posits is that: although it may be impossible for the African continent to delink from the entire International Financial System; it is possible for the African continent to minimise the influence of the neoliberal paradigm on a sectoral level. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / University of Pretoria / Political Sciences / MA / Unrestricted

The landscape of South African National Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) is comprised of twelve entities. Their institutional objectives range from supporting farmers, financing industrialisation, infrastructural development, and promoting financial inclusion. These DFI objectives fall under the umbrella of Private Sector Development (PSD) interventions. Literature established that the success of PSD is contingent on effective impact evaluation. Consequently, the main research question explored in this dissertation is: In what ways, and using what tools and systems, do South African DFIs measure the development impact of their investments? In support of the main question, two sub-questions were are also investigated. Firstly, whether impact evaluation systems provide credible, timely and relevant information. Secondly, whether impact evaluation systems support evidence-based decision making and learning. In response to these questions, a qualitative case study of six National DFIs was carried out. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with DFI staff members involved in impact evaluation. This was supported by secondary data from annual reports and organisational websites. It was established that, firstly, DFIs use non-uniform impact evaluation systems and tools to measure the impact of their investments. Secondly, the systems lack qualitative detail and focus on measuring outputs instead of outcomes. Thus, much emphasis is placed on monitoring instead of impact evaluation. This renders the impact evaluation systems and tools highly ineffective. Finally, whilst the avowed objective of DFIs is development, financial viability takes precedence when selecting projects. Therefore, an emerging conclusion was that systems in place do not support development impact evidence-based decision-making. These findings generated recommendations for changing the development impact evaluation tools and systems used by South African National DFIs. It is expected that recommended changes will maximise DFI socio-economic benefits.

As the symbolic and functional heart of the New Orleans tourism industry, the French Quarter has been described as the city's "number one factory". Using this evocative image as a starting point, this paper explores workaday life within this factory. I argue that the political economy of tourism brings together the world of work and the world of leisure in such a way that neither can be meaningfully understood apart from each other. To get at this point, I examine the commodity which at the heart of the tourist economy, which, I contend, is the touristic experience. Drawing on data gleaned from interviews, participant observation, and analysis of tourist discourse, I show that the production of this commodity – immaterial as it may appear – is in fact quite labor intensive. Furthermore, as tourism has become the driving sector of the New Orleans economy, the social and economic arrangements that the industry entails have extended out from the factory, integrating a broader swath of the city's geography into its structure than is generally supposed.

A reform of the constitutional bases of the oil and gas industry in Mexico took place in 2013 (with sweeping changes to secondary legislation through 2014). Private and foreign production of hydrocarbons became legal after almost six decades of national monopoly --and 75 years after the revolutionary regime nationalized the assets of foreign producers. A wholesale market for electricity was also put in place. These legal reforms started to crystallize in 2018, as private producers started to have access to the networks carrying electricity and gas across the nation. This research presents a retrospective examination of 23 years of policy implementation in the natural gas industry of Mexico (1995-2018). The dissertation pays central attention to the patterns of state intervention that have characterized the national economy and that have contributed to shape the outcome of two policy packages pursuing liberalisation (one starting in 1995 and the other in 2013 and 2014). The research is based on a classical political economy approach, drawing on the literature on Varieties of Capitalism and Varieties of State Capitalism. The study centers on the relations between the players in the sector: their constraints and resources, against a backdrop of other economic policies affecting energy. Importantly, this study considers regulation as a mechanism of economic coordination. As a process-tracing case study, this thesis sets out to elucidate the distinctive factors that contributed to produce the current organization of the natural gas sector in Mexico --one where, ironically, liberalisation has been possible thanks to the deployment of a new state-owned enterprise. Three factors stand out as characteristic in the Mexican trajectory towards liberalisation: the strength of the national oil company as an obstacle of upstream liberalisation for almost two decades after 1995; the absence or weakness of constituencies supporting the restructuring of the sector (large industrial consumers, local distributors), and the sudden restructuring of supply and demand patterns, with the state-owned electricity enterprise emerging as a dominant trader. The new centrality of the electricity SOE and an Independent System Operator (also an SOE) underscores the limits of the new, more competitive, structure of the Mexican natural gas industry.

Although the sensational world of Gothic literature may seem to have little to do with the “dismal science” of economics, readers and critics have long recognized connections between Romantic-era political economic discourse and Gothic novels, from the trope of the haunted castle on contested property to Adam Smith’s metaphor of the spectral “invisible hand.” This study, the first sustained investigation of economics and the Gothic, reads Romantic Gothic literature as an important voice in public debates about the economic ideas that shaped the emerging phenomenon of commercial society. Drawing on Charles Taylor’s notion of the modern social imaginary, it argues that the ways in which Gothic literature interrogated these ideas continues to inform our understanding of the economy and our place within it today. Each chapter focuses on an economic idea, including property, coverture, credit, debt, and consumption, in relation to a selection of representative Gothic texts, from Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1848). It analyzes these texts—primarily novels, but also short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—in the context of political economic writings by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and others. Through this analysis, this study argues that economic ideas are foundational to the Gothic, a mode of literature deeply engaged with the political, cultural, social, and economic upheavals that characterize the Romantic Age. / Graduate / 2021-05-14

The 2008 global financial crisis was a rude awakening for financial regulators. In its wake, a novel approach called macroprudential policy became an important pillar of financial regulation. But in the years after the crisis, the stringency of macroprudential policy outputs vary across countries, across specific financial sectors, and across time, a worrying reality given that uneven regulation across borders and sectors was one of the exacerbating factors of the 2008 crisis. What explains this cross-country, cross-sectoral and cross-temporal variations in macroprudential policy? This dissertation argues that when the political salience of financial regulation is high, politicians are more likely to intervene in regulatory affairs to impose their policy preferences. But in times when salience is low, it is the policy orientation of the regulators – the “tamers of finance” – that primarily shape the stringency of macroprudential policy. In institutional settings with multiple financial regulators who hold conflicting policy orientations, this bureaucratic tension is likely to increase policy stringency. This theoretical framework is tested through an in-depth comparative historical analysis of the banking and asset management sectors in the United States and Japan. In the US banking sector, regulators to impose highly stringent macroprudential policies in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, but they began to loosen these policies at the margins from 2017. The US asset management sector, on the other hand, was characterized by policies of moderate stringency in the wake of the crisis, and again after 2014. In the Japanese banking case, the crucial financial crisis for determining macroprudential policy outcomes came not in 2008 but in the late 1990s, when the government was compelled to contain a banking crisis and implemented highly stringent policies. After 2008, therefore, Japanese regulators could afford to implement policies of only moderate stringency. Finally, the Japanese asset management sector remains untouched by macroprudential policy because both politicians and regulators gradually deregulated and liberalized to this sector, which historically struggled to grow, and have not felt the need to enact macroprudential policies. In all, this analysis broadly confirms the theoretical framework set forth in this dissertation. / Political Science

This paper examines the funding procedure in Ontario long-term care facilities and seeks to identify whether current resources for protecting the elderly from mistreatment is allocated fairly and effectively. The research also observes how the political economy may influence the needs-based allocation built to protect seniors from mistreatment in institutional care settings and the consequences of these resources on residents’ autonomy. The topic is also viewed through the lens of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Five experts in the area of long-term care participated in this research work including academics, scholars and institutional or agency advocates. Interviews lasting up to 60 minutes interviews were conducted, transcribed and analyzed using a political economy lens. Participants described their knowledge and experience with the funding procedure for long term-care facilities, particularly in Ontario and provided their view on areas that they felt could be improved. The analysis identified four themes including whether the issue is under-resourced, poor allocation of resources; funding according to need; the struggle to define and assess the quality of care; and general work conditions in long-term care. The result of this research will help us to better understand the resource allocation of Ontario long-term care facilities which could in turn highlight improvements that could be made to create better quality of life for residents as well as frontline workers. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This paper examines the funding procedure in Ontario long-term care facilities and seeks to identify whether current resources for protecting the elderly from mistreatment is allocated fairly and effectively. The topic is viewed through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of the five expert interviews identified four themes including whether the issue is under-resourced, poor allocation of resources; funding according to need; the struggle to define and assess the quality of care; and general work conditions in long-term care. The result of this research will help us to better understand the resource allocation of Ontario long-term care facilities which could in turn highlight improvements that could be made to create better quality of life for residents as well as frontline workers.

Why do countries have different monetary systems? Existing theories of monetary development generally focus on the economic forces driving such developments or on the power of states to impose their preferred systems. These theories highlight important structural preconditions, but they do not provide an adequate analysis of money’s institutional design during periods when the very essence of money is questioned and contested. This dissertation explores the emergence and distinct evolution of modern monetary regimes in Europe, using a cultural approach to refocus attention to critical processes of monetary contestation and reform. By framing the politics of money as a process of meaning-making, such an approach reveals how monetary regimes are constructed around specific conceptions of money and identifies connections with broad social, political, and economic imaginaries. This argument is explored and substantiated through the comparative-historical study of two countries, Britain and Sweden, in two periods of monetary change. By tracing and juxtaposing processes of meaning-making during periods of monetary contestation and reform, the analysis finds that the design of modern monetary and banking systems in the 19th and early 20th centuries was steered by cultural debates on the relationships between money, social order, and political authority. In 19th-century Britain, concerns over the political and socio-economic rise of the masses led elites to construct a monetary order centered on the principle of monetary discipline, while in Sweden, a developmental monetary regime emerged as a result of political conflict over the privilege-based organization of society. Both monetary orders were contested in the interwar period, but the ensuing reform efforts once again produced distinct results. In Britain, despite reforms spearheaded by Keynesians and influenced by new ideas for social justice, there was only limited reconfiguration of the monetary regime, and core features of the traditional order survived. The Swedish monetary order, in contrast, was radically transformed. A new cultural emphasis on the public good coincided with the rise of social democracy, resulting in a monetary regime subsumed within the broader macroeconomic-policy framework of the postwar welfare state. These findings shed new light on the divergent development of monetary systems, and the argument and analytical framework have implications for understanding contemporary capitalism and for thinking about possibilities for monetary reform in our current era of financial capitalism. / 2025-07-27T00:00:00Z

Drawing on Foucault’s conception of “subjugated knowledges,” this thesis attempts to articulate a subjugated anti-colonial reading of Marx so as to interrogate the discursive modifications effected within Marxism after Marx, specifically as those modifications relate to the conditions of possibility regulating Marxist understandings of race and colonialism. This genealogy proceeds by offering a critical re-examination of the ways in which Marxists of the Second International theorized a “modern,” “scientific” account of imperialism, one that expunged important insights into the nature of colonial-capitalism at the same time it established a new knowledge of capitalist expansion and the world market. This Leninist schematization of imperialism is theorized in relation to “deraceination,” a neologism arising from this project and describing the manifold discursive processes by which Marxism was uprooted from its grounding materialist premises while it underwent an ideological de-racialization that eschewed discussions of race and Indigeneity in Marxist political economy. After this critique of the Leninist schematization of imperialism, deraceination is elaborated by revisiting the early history of Marxist feminism, leading to the conclusion that the historical subjugation of the basic materiality of race and gender was accomplished in no small part through the definition of “the woman question.” By liberating this subjugated trajectory of Marxist thought, this thesis argues for the necessity of reincorporating an anti-colonial reading of Marx into our understandings of Marxism and Marxist feminism.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the construction of a theoretical framework for empirical examination of social movements in Third World countries. Political process theory, currently a dominant perspective on social movements, is the most promising starting point for such a research program; however, it has inherent Western biases, which severely limit its explanatory power for examining Third World social movements. Specifically, I contend that political process theory's understanding of the relationship between the state and social movements, as well as its assumptions about the dynamics of political opportunity structures, inadequately capture the complexities of the Third World social movements. Therefore, as the basis of a larger project, I critique the western biases inherent in the theoretical framework of the political process theory, focusing exclusively on Doug McAdam's contributions to this approach. I employ a hermeneutic method, since it provides a useful means for engaging in discourse with texts. I conclude that McAdam's views on political opportunity and the state reflect a Eurocentric reading and understanding, in large part because his analyses have been based on democratic states.Accordingly, some of the political process theory's key shortcomings for Third World applications are that it overemphasizes the analytic and practical importance of the electoral system, and that its logic is rooted in unrealistic assumptions of inherently stable political structures and institutionalized democratic processes. / Master of Science