Given the background of rising economic inequalities, the topic has reentered the field of economic science. Yet the problem of how economic inequality is being mediated to the public is not discussed in economics at all, and hardly mentioned in communication studies. Through an analysis of recent empirical studies on the coverage of inequality in the media, we debate the role mass media play as information providers. Assessing the underlying assumptions and the methodological approaches guiding the respective empirical findings, we can highlight the merits of this body of work and identify open questions for further research. The last part of the article provides a discussion of (currently rather neglected) political economy theories that offer rich theoretical approaches to study media, power, and inequality.

One of the most significant economic developments over the past decades has been the rise in income and wealth inequality. After decades of benign neglect, the issues of economic and social inequalities have reentered the stage of mainstream political attention in the Western heartland over the past couple of years. This is due, in part, to the high public profile of publications by Thomas Piketty and Tony Atkinson. In line with the growing significance of deepening economic inequalities, this Special Section engages with two broad, if overlapping, questions: (1) How do new forms of economic inequality, power, and privilege relate to relevant theories and conceptualizations of the media and institutions of public communication, whether in the fields of communication studies or political economy? (2) What role do the new forms of economic inequality play today in the typical narratives of mediated communication, and how is such inequality framed and discussed?

Att den norrländska landsbygden länge haft befolkningsproblem råder inga tvivel om, och dess befolkning spås inte heller öka i framtiden. Så sent som i somras kom dock en önskan från Näringslivscheferna i Region 8-kommunerna om att man tillsammans ville börja arbeta med inflyttning och rekrytering. Syftet med denna studie var att studera hur kommuner inom Region 8-samarbetet arbetar med att öka kommunens inflyttning och attraktionskraft. Detta undersöktes genom ett fokus på platsmarknadsföring utifrån ett statsvetenskapligt perspektiv. I studien genomfördes kvalitativa intervjuer med utvalda kommuner inom Region 8-samarbetet, och även med en representant för Region 8 som helhet. Studien identifierade att samtliga av de kommuner som ingick i studien, och även Region 8 i stort, använder sig av meningsbyggande åtgärder, definierade genom CPE, i arbetet med inflyttning och attraktionskraft. Det vill säga man lyfter fram det som sedan tidigare är en del av kommunens identitet och bygger mening kring denna, i syfte att locka till sig invånare och besökare.

In the social sciences, research on black male youth (BMY) experiences in traditional academic settings has been limited to their failure to achieve due to their perceived dysfunctional family structure, gender and ethnic identity, social class, and social structural constraints. Characterized by the anthropological investigation into youth cultural, Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) framework, a theory of practice that includes an alternative framework of learning, and a mixed method approach with an emphasis on capturing the youth perspective through a PhotoVoice process, this research captures a dimension of BMY educational experiences by describing how exclusion from traditional academic settings is produced. Exclusion, as described in this research, is the stage of academic, social and cultural separation leading up to a student dropping out of school. Using case profiles of five BMY who have been traditionally excluded from public schools, this research focuses on how the social forces, such as family structure, gender, ethnicity, social class, and social structural constraints, interact to produce said exclusion. The results of this research indicate that the production of exclusion is an obscure process that is located in and hidden behind: traditional views of learning of BMY and adult stakeholders in education, unexamined assumptions and biases of BMY and adult stakeholders in education, and State sponsored policies and regulations. The implications of this research are discussed, in terms of theory and application. Applied anthropologist in education must take a theoretical role in uncovering ingrained belief systems and unexamined paradigms that control our educational institutions. To move applied anthropology into the next dimension, this study also addresses the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to create and implement sustainable solutions for the various issues present in United States’ educational institutions.

This thesis eschews an econometric approach to the analysis of microfinance initiatives in favour of a wider, political economy approach. It paints a picture of the international financial and socio-economic environment in which microfinance as a practice has developed since the mid-1970s, and the introduction outlines the political agendas that fuel the theoretical debate over development, and the manner in which the self-proclaimedly objective scientific rationale that underlines the dominant neoliberal hegemony is in reality no such thing. The introduction is followed by a methodological explanation of the necessity to examine microfinance in such a context, and then deals with the combination of approaches included in the thesis, sources, and data-collection methods of the fieldwork in Nicaragua. The next three chapters comprise the body of theoretical and literary evidence in support of this methodology, from the international down to the sectoral level within Nicaragua. Having located the Nicaraguan microfinance sector within a theoretical, international and national context, the subsequent chapter moves to examine the local context. The fieldwork in Nicaragua culminates in a combined map- and questionnaire-based exercise set in Masaya, a city some 27 kilometres roughly south of Managua, the capital. The chapter examines the structure and functions of two local microfinance organisations, FAMA and ADIM, and conducts a close examination of the population amongst which these microfinance organisations operate. The survey of the socioeconomy of households within the Masaya area concludes by casting doubts on, traditional methods of microfinance impact assessment, and suggests a different approach to studying microfinance. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the current vogue for envisaging microfinance initiatives as purely financial operations to be analysed as an accounting phenomenon is not only mistaken, but has potentially damaging consequences. The thesis argues that microfinance must be seen within local, national and international political contexts, and that doing so will help avoid costly errors. The thesis also suggests that the demand for new client-orientated initiatives will be assisted by taking the political economic reality into account, and by using methods such as those suggested by this thesis.

This thesis studies the relationship of cultural and economic segregation with politics.Based on a theoretical model where the provision of a public good depends on howfar apart voters are in terms of preferences, it is suggested that the support for theSweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) to some extent is driven by segregation.Using municipal level data on incomes and namesday names in zip code areas an indexof segregation is created in order to test this hypothesis. The results are inconclusive butthere is an indication of a negative association between multidimensional segregationand the election results for the Sweden Democrats.

Manufacturing Revolutions - Industrial Policy and Networks in South Korea. This chapter uses a historic big push intervention and newly digitized data from South Korea to study the effects of industrial policy on industrial development. In 1973 South Korea transitioned to a military dictatorship and drastically changed their development strategy. I find industries targeted by the regime's big push grew significantly more than non-targeted industries along several key dimensions of industrial development. These developmental effects persisted after industrial policies were retrenched, following the 1979 assassination of the president. Furthermore, I estimate the spillovers of the industrial policies using exogenous variation in the exposure to the policy across the input-output network. I find evidence of persistent pecuniary externalities like those posited by big push development theorists, such as Albert Hirschman. In other words, I find that South Korea's controversial industrial policy was successful in producing industrial development, the benefits of which persisted through time and in industries not directly targeted by the policies. Waiting for the Great Leap Forward - The Green Revolution and Structural Change in the Philippines. This study explores the short- and long-run impacts of the green revolution on structural transformation. The setting is the revolution’s home country: the Philippines. In 1966, the Philippine’s experienced the widespread introduction of so-called “miracle rice” varieties, invented at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Laguna. The island republic experienced large gains to agricultural productivity as a result. Using a newly constructed panel of Philippine municipalities, I show that growth in agricultural productivity led to unexpected patterns of structural transformation. In the short-run, the green revolution translated into labor-absorbing technological change, reallocating labor into HYV-intensive rice economies. However, in the long-run, the rising relative cost of labor, meant that rice farms mechanized and displaced the Philippine peasantry into the service sector. The Historical State, Local Collective Action, and Economic Development in Vietnam. This study examines how the historical state conditions long-run development, using Vietnam as a laboratory. Northern Vietnam (Dai Viet) was ruled by a strong centralized state in which the village was the fundamental administrative unit. Southern Vietnam was a peripheral tributary of the Khmer (Cambodian) Empire, which followed a patron-client model with weaker, more personalized power relations and no village intermediation. Using a regression discontinuity design across the Dai Viet-Khmer boundary, the study shows that areas historically under a strong state have higher living standards today and better economic outcomes over the past 150 years. Rich historical data document that in villages with a strong historical state, citizens have been better able to organize for public goods and redistribution through civil society and local government. This suggests that the strong historical state crowded in village-level collective action and that these norms persisted long after the original state disappeared.

This thesis seeks to understand how state-business relations are affected by wider societal transformations. These transformations influence the potentially crony capitalist type of state society relations. I analyzed the evolution of state-business relations in Morocco. I highlighted three different factors which affected state-business relations and potentially can offset negative consequences of crony capitalism. Fragmentation of state institutions, political factions and economic actors and the maintenance of cross-cutting alliances by the monarchy have resulted in a fragmented-multiclass state. In addition, the changing nature of the role of the state in the economy had profound implications on state-business relations in Morocco. Paradoxically, the fragmented nature of Morocco, which is the result of cross-cutting coalitions between the monarchy and society, meant that the state did not fall exclusively in the hands of private interests. The pivotal position of the monarchy in economic and political life has enabled the monarchy to fragment opposition and forge diverse alliances to maintain its support-base. My theoretical approach using a macro-historical analysis coupled with process tracing of various policy domains proved to be a useful methodology for this type of research which falls in the nexus of politics and economics. Given this my thesis made a contribution to both Middle East studies as well as the wider literature on state-business relations. In addition, my research contributes to the wider debate on the resilience of monarchies in the aftermath of the Arab spring.

Magister Artium - MA / The study focuses on the political and economic geographies of pharmaceutical delivery. In 1997 the South African government passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, sparking outrage from both the local and international pharmaceutical industry, and resulting in court action in 2001. The industry believed that South Africa was in breach of its obligations under international intellectual property law. Those fighting for pharmaceutical security hoped the court case would be a 'landmark' in the global campaign for equitable access to medicines. This investigation seeks to analyse the domestic and international legacy of the court action. The inquiry takes its significance from the high prevalence rates of treatable diseases and the need for pharmaceutical security in South Africa and its neighbouring African countries. The absence of a sustainable international medicines delivery system is a global political, economic and moral failure. A solution is required that balances the positive productive forces of the market with a philosophy of justice and equity. / South Africa

Among increased calls for "new narratives" of Haiti, this thesis seeks to honor Haitian traditions of intellectualism and resistance, centering on the life and legacy of martyred professor Janil Lwijis in post-earthquake student social movements. Based on oral histories with student activists at the State University of Haiti (UEH), this work explores student protest in Haiti through the voices, often at odds, of those en lutte; it explores how Janil is invoked and remembered, and argues that oral history can contribute to activist research and pose a challenge to dominant narratives. A legacy that is contested, differential claims to Janil's memory are infused with politics and history. This work seeks to understand contested claims to his memory through Marxist political economy, arguing that an interpretation of Haiti’s political economy is crucial to understanding the emergence of critical consciousness and social movements, political demands, and the symbols and meanings that characterize them.