This thesis synthesizes theoretical and methodological insights of actor-network theory with the political economy of communication in order to trace the history of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, 2005-2009. The purpose is to demonstrate how a power elite of transnational corporate actants are increasingly structuring transnational border policy, encouraging the deployment of ubiquitous surveillance technology and the liberalization of transborder data flows and markets, primarily for the purposes of maximizing capital accumulation, ideological legitimation and the suppression of resistance. This hybridization of state and corporate actants exemplifies how prosperity partnerships and other similar informal working groups are increasingly being used as powerful vehicles for mobilizing the private sector into influencing border policies throughout North America, effectively creating powerful socio-technical scenarios for influencing global markets. The argument advanced is that borders are increasingly becoming topological spaces which unevenly distributed objects and people across various networks and flows, in turn re-shaping urban landscapes towards private interests. As such, topological prosperity entails configuring networked infrastructures and spaces such as borders and airports in ways which favour particular socio-economic groups, primarily an ascending global economic elite. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2011-08-28 15:18:47.858

No description available.

This dissertation analyzes the case of organized climate change denial in the United States as a manifestation of the power of the policy planning and opinion shaping networks in the US. It uses a variety of power structure research techniques to put together a topographical study of a fossil fuels network sitting at the core of a wider conservative network which sits at the core of the policy planning and opinion shaping processes. The connections between the core fossil fuels network and wider conservative policy network are examined at length. Using climate change denial as the case allows for the study of how a distinct industry— fossil fuels—can organize a faction which can help set the ideological agenda of the wider corporate and conservative networks. A power elite theoretical approach outlined by Domhoff is used, and the conclusions that may be drawn from this case study support the usefulness of that approach. I also find that the case at hand illustrates how Domhoff’s model may be extended and augmented in light of the strategic and tactical innovations employed by those in the climate change denial faction. Although elites have often tried—with varying levels of success—to employ at least a veneer of populist support in formulating policy, climate change denial employs a new level of sophistication in then fossil fuels’ faction’s long-term strategic planning and investment. This faction’s ability to wrest ideological control of much of the tea party movement and bring that party's policy aims into lie with its own allowed for the addition of a powerful populist element to the climate change denial tactical repertoire. Similarly, new secrecy techniques go far beyond those used by elites in the past, reflecting a new set of needs on the part of the individuals and groups involved in the policy network and necessitating the augmentation of the existing network with specialized entities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-271).

Thesis (Ph. D)--University of Pennsylvania, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-271).

This thesis examines two organizational strategies employed for influencing American environmental policy with considerations to the "power elite" and "pluralist" models of policy control. Using a data set comprised of 379 organizations derived from US congressional hearings on climate change policy between 1976 and 2006, I find that industrial corporations conceal the public footprint of their involvement by financially encouraging "independent" research centers to provide favorable testimony. Meanwhile, nonprofit organizations are more likely to be co-represented by shared experts, a resource that is strategically shared for political gain. These findings provide some circumscribed support for both the power elite and pluralist models of organizational influence: the organization of power elites has a disproportionate amount of resources in a system that provides an arena for competing values and goals. Implications for understanding the organizational strategies towards congressional testimony as well as directions for future research are discussed based on these findings.

This dissertation seeks to explain the uncanny continuity of hegemonic US foreign policy across presidential administrations and the breakdown of the rule of law as evidenced by unadjudicated state and elite criminality. It finds that a nebulous deep state predominates over politics and society. This deep state is comprised of institutions that advance the interests of the politico-economic elite through nexuses connecting the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and mediating national security organizations. To investigate the evolution of the state, the tripartite state construct is elucidated. It is a synthesis and expansion of three extant approaches—dual state theory, theories of the power elite, and the deep politics framework which explores the impactful forces and institutions whose influence is typically repressed rather than acknowledged in mainstream discourse. The tripartite state is comprised of the democratic or public state, the security state, and the deep state. A key contention herein is that the deep state developed alongside postwar US exceptionism—the institutionalized abrogation of the rule of law, ostensibly on the basis of “national security.” Theories of hegemony and empire are analyzed and critiqued and refined. To wit: the post-World War II US empire has been sustained by hegemonic institutions which rely on various degrees of consent and coercion—both in a dyadic sense but increasingly through structural dominance following the collapse of Bretton Woods. Rival hypotheses related to the state and US foreign policy are analyzed and critiqued. To explore the concept of a deep state within a nominal democracy, open democratic modes of power are contrasted with top-down or dark power. Through process tracing, the historical evolution of the US state is delineated, charting the means by which US imperial hegemony was reproduced. Presidential administrations and the Watergate scandal serve as case studies of sorts, illustrating the deep state’s role in the general thrust of postwar US politics—imperial hegemony over the international system. Finally, various deep state institutions are examined along with a discussion of generalizability, applications, and implications of the foregoing scholarship. / Political Science

Orientador: Milton Carlos Costa / Banca: Clodoaldo Bueno / Banca: Karina Anhezini de Araújo / Banca: Francisco Assis de Queiroz / Banca: Angelo Aparecido Priori / Resumo: A proposta deste trabalho é examinar comparativamente a trajetória política de um grupo de agentes dos Departamentos de Estado e da Defesa dos Estados Unidos, descrevendo seu papel na gênese da Guerra Fria, entre 1945 e 1950. Na primeira parte, é proposta uma discussão conceitual do tema e a configuração do contexto sócio-político, destacando o mercado de bens simbólicos em torno dos quais foi criada a Doutrina de Contenção de George F. Kennan. Em seguida, é feita a construção das origens e das trajetória de um grupo específico de intelectuais que deram suporte à referida Doutrina para, finalmente, comparar a evolução social, política e econômica de cada um a partir do papel que exerceram na conformação da Guerra Fria. Como fonte histórica, adotar-se-á a produção intelectual disponível de George F. Kennan e obras historiográficas, bibliográficas e documentos oficiais do Departamento de Estado, além de trabalhos biográficos e de memórias / Abstract: This work intends to compare the political trajectories of some US State and Defense Departments' officers related with Cold War's genesis (1945-1950). Divided in three parts, the first one discusses the theoretical views that shaped the period social-political background, the power elite concepts and the symbolical market created around George Kennan's containment policies. Then, the origins and trajectories of a group of officials and intellectuals who gave support to the referred policies will be described, to finally explore their social, political and economic backgrounds, as well as their role in shaping a new foreign policy for their country. George Kennan's intellectual production was the chief historical source of this work, but historiographical and bibliographical volumes related to the period were also examined, along with official documents from State and Defense Department, biographies and memories written by the researched / Doutor

Cette thèse de doctorat étudie les liens entretenus entre les sociétés politiques de Dijon et de Lille et le pouvoir princier sous les deux derniers ducs de Bourgogne (1419-1477), en interrogeant la manière dont les bourgeois l’ont apprécié en termes d’opportunité, se sont associés au fonctionnement de l’État princier et investis au service du prince. Toutes deux capitales d’un ensemble multipolaire de principautés dont elles sont deux des principales villes francophones, Dijon et Lille appartiennent à deux espaces géopolitiques diversement intégrés (le premier, marginal ; l’autre, central) et rarement observés ensemble. L’analyse, portée à partir des milieux dirigeants, souligne l’originalité avec laquelle ces liens s’établissent. Les dijonnais sont étroitement associés à l’exercice du pouvoir princier, là où les Lillois séparent strictement implication municipale et service du prince, mais sont étroitement liés à l’entourage ducal. La sociologie du pouvoir municipal comme des éléments de contexte régional expliquent les différences remarquées. Au-delà de ces différences, l’investissement bourgeois, qui s’articule à un ensemble d’activités parmi lesquelles l’exercice du pouvoir municipal reste toujours décisif, participe à l’évolution des sociétés urbaines, et, amorçant leur intégration à une société politique d’ordre territorial, et induit une adaptation pragmatique des pratiques politiques des Villes. La disparition de Charles le Téméraire confirme cette capacité d’adaptation des sociétés bourgeoises, qui réorientent à leur profit vers de nouveaux pouvoirs les liens élaborés auprès des ducs de Bourgogne. / This PhD thesis is about the relationship between political societies of Dijon and Lille and princely power under the last two dukes of Burgundy (1419-1477) studying the manner the citizens felt it in terms of appropriateness and how they associated to the princely state and got involved in serving it. Both capitals of a multipolar body of principalities of which they are two of the main French-speaking towns, Dijon and Lille belong to two geopolitical, diversely integrated areas (the former marginal, the latter central) and seldom observed together. The analysis seen from the ruling circles emphasizes the originality with which their links work out. The inhabitants of Dijon are closely associated with the prince’s exercising of power whereas the inhabitants of Lille strictly separate town implication from prince service though both closely related to the ducal entourage. The municipal power sociology together with regional context elements can explain those observed differences. Beyond them, the citizens investment, which is articulated to a set of activities among which the town exercise of power always remains decisive, takes part in urban societies development and initiating their integration in a political territorial society, induces a pragmatic adaptation of town practical politics. The death of Charles the Bold confirms this ability of bourgeois societies to adapt themselves and redirect the ties built with the dukes of Burgundy towards new powers for their benefit.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-25Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:43:28Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 pennacchi_amt_dr_assis_parcial.pdf: 177450 bytes, checksum: 2c0f9a5ffa60bed865b8ee2acd02c7fb (MD5) Bitstreams deleted on 2015-02-09T17:15:04Z: pennacchi_amt_dr_assis_parcial.pdf,Bitstream added on 2015-02-09T17:15:41Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000648938.pdf: 1488947 bytes, checksum: bc514d8e37395dc4ad999f2217df2a6e (MD5) / A proposta deste trabalho é examinar comparativamente a trajetória política de um grupo de agentes dos Departamentos de Estado e da Defesa dos Estados Unidos, descrevendo seu papel na gênese da Guerra Fria, entre 1945 e 1950. Na primeira parte, é proposta uma discussão conceitual do tema e a configuração do contexto sócio-político, destacando o mercado de bens simbólicos em torno dos quais foi criada a Doutrina de Contenção de George F. Kennan. Em seguida, é feita a construção das origens e das trajetória de um grupo específico de intelectuais que deram suporte à referida Doutrina para, finalmente, comparar a evolução social, política e econômica de cada um a partir do papel que exerceram na conformação da Guerra Fria. Como fonte histórica, adotar-se-á a produção intelectual disponível de George F. Kennan e obras historiográficas, bibliográficas e documentos oficiais do Departamento de Estado, além de trabalhos biográficos e de memórias / This work intends to compare the political trajectories of some US State and Defense Departments’ officers related with Cold War’s genesis (1945-1950). Divided in three parts, the first one discusses the theoretical views that shaped the period social-political background, the power elite concepts and the symbolical market created around George Kennan`s containment policies. Then, the origins and trajectories of a group of officials and intellectuals who gave support to the referred policies will be described, to finally explore their social, political and economic backgrounds, as well as their role in shaping a new foreign policy for their country. George Kennan’s intellectual production was the chief historical source of this work, but historiographical and bibliographical volumes related to the period were also examined, along with official documents from State and Defense Department, biographies and memories written by the researched