The academic discipline of Sociology has rarely broached the subject of war and its recursive relationship with society. This paper addresses three major approaches in several disciplines that can be deemed ‘economically deterministic’: Marxist, Liberal, and Realist. These approaches can be useful for certain questions, but also leave out, or cloud other non-economic variables in understanding war – notably culture and military variables themselves. By using Karl Polanyi’s thesis regarding the “Myth of the Hundred Years’ Peace” (1815-1914) as a foil, the historical case of war in the nineteenth century is used to highlight the nature of war in European modernity and capitalism.

The academic discipline of Sociology has rarely broached the subject of war and its recursive relationship with society. This paper addresses three major approaches in several disciplines that can be deemed ‘economically deterministic’: Marxist, Liberal, and Realist. These approaches can be useful for certain questions, but also leave out, or cloud other non-economic variables in understanding war – notably culture and military variables themselves. By using Karl Polanyi’s thesis regarding the “Myth of the Hundred Years’ Peace” (1815-1914) as a foil, the historical case of war in the nineteenth century is used to highlight the nature of war in European modernity and capitalism.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of History, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-68).

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Despite a century of scholarly critique, William Fielding Ogburn’s cultural lag hypothesis (CLH) endures. The inclusion of Ogburn’s hypothesis in introductory sociology textbooks, reference books, and histories of technology lends an unwarranted authority to its scientific credibility. I critically assess Ogburn’s CLH and find that it is neither scientifically nor theoretically sound. Specifically, I discover presumptions of cultural integration and normative progressivism, the fallacy of ambiguity, problems of causal explanation, operationalization, and selective bias, which renders the CLH unmeasurable, unfalsifiable, and non-replicable. Finally, I briefly discuss the implications and make suggestions for future research.

US sociology has historically denied slavery and colonialism as demanding of sociological study. The roots of this can be examined at the turn of the twentieth century in the early years of the institutionalization of the discipline in American universities. The inattention stems from a white supremacist racial ontology that underpins US sociology in general (embedded in the category of modernity and the category of sociology itself). There are traces or identifiable ‘moments of silencing’ during the first ten years of the American Journal of Sociology (AJS), the discipline’s first professional journal in the US, in which early (white) sociologists hide the colonial and slavery-dependent material roots of modernity behind a “positivistic” philosophy of social science and a mix of the biologically and culturally inflected ideologies of scientific racism. The persistence of the notion of modernity as given and the unconscious positivist epistemology of mainstream US sociology causes it to stall in face of the paralyzing contradiction between a stated interest in addressing inequality and a simultaneous refusal to examine the issues of power and inequality in the conditions of its own founding.

This current study utilized recreation specialization and leisure motivation theory to explore the meanings, perspectives, and behaviors among female surfers. Despite numerous studies previously published regarding recreation specialization and leisure motivation related to activity participation, little research has been conducted on the activity of surfing from a female perspective. Data for this study were collected using in-depth, semi- structured interviews of nine women surfers from the California Central Coast. Content analyses of the data involved coding and identifying key themes, patterns, and categories. The dominant themes significant within recreation specialization included past participation (e.g., preceding activities to eventual participation and wave/swell conditions), perceived skills (i.e., skills important to surfing, perceived skill level), commitment (e.g., central to life activity, central leisure activity, affective attachment, and adoption of social/cultural values), and enduring involvement (e.g., attraction and sensory enjoyment). The major themes that emerged from data specific to leisure motivation included initial attraction (e.g., observing others), initial motivation to participate/actively pursue (e.g., desirable setting and sensory enjoyment) and enduring motivation (e.g., achievement/stimulation, sensory enjoyment, anticipation, attraction and flow). Major themes emerged from the results of this study identify the varying styles of involvement in the participants. Additionally, results revealed the behaviors and feminine perspectives of participants that identified the meanings and experiences associated with these categories. Participants identified the pre-activity routines they engage in to prepare for surfing addressed how surfing provides them opportunities for relational leisure and self-determined leisure. Lastly, participants’ revealed factors that constrain participation and opportunities for relational and autonomous experiences.

<p>This dissertation is about how think tanks produce and promote policy ideas. It is informed by 53 semi-structured interviews, financial and employee data for 30 think tanks over 11 years, documentary materials (including newspaper data, annual reports, strategic plans, communication reports, and publications), office visits at think tanks, and observation at public events. In substantive chapters, I address (i.) the funding environment underpinning think tank policy research in Canada, (ii.) the epistemic cultures shaping knowledge production, and (iii.) the rhetorical strategies of intellectuals --- affiliated with or oriented to think tanks --- challenging the scientific consensus on climate change in "the space of opinion."</p> <p>In chapter two, I present a comparative analysis of think tank funding that challenges predictions derived from elite and pluralist theories, and builds on recent field theory. I find that the availability of state and private donor funding creates an environment where think tanks mostly cater to two types of sponsors with diverging preferences. The relative separation of state and donor funding is politically patterned, with conservative think tanks being funded by private donors and centrists by the state. Rather than being "independent" or members of a "corporate-policy elite,"" think tanks face extreme versions of common organizational problems, in particular resource dependencies and conflicting institutional logics.</p> <p>In the third chapter, I draw on the sociology of ideas to propose that the production and promotion of policy ideas in think tanks vary in three ways. First, there are diverging tendencies towards universalism and contextualism in a broadly utilitarian epistemic culture. Secondly, think tanks vary in the extent to which they integrate their research and communication strategies in short and long term projects. Finally, among those active in the ``space of opinion,'' some are seeking leverage for negotiations with elites, others to shape public opinion in specific ways, and others to rise to the top of an intellectual attention space as authoritative intellectuals.</p> <p>Chapter four is a case study of intellectuals --- affiliated with or oriented to think tanks --- discussing climate change and climate science in "the space of opinion."" Based on an inductive qualitative analysis of 417 systematically collected articles, I discuss two tactics writers have used in an effort to de-legitimate the scientific consensus on climate change. Without a vetted body of knowledge ready to take centre stage, and without appealing to non-scientific cultural authorities, writers (i.) re-frame consensus as a political construct, and their own skepticism as supremely scientific, and (ii.) personalize climate science by smearing high profile environmentalists and scientists, and chipping away at the character of mainstream climate scientists. Together, these tactics portray skeptics as more scientific than climate scientists.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Halfway into its third decade, the debate surrounding the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis has stalled with political economists and socio-ecologists ascendant and modernization theorists scrambling to give their apparently moribund perspective new life. But beyond the rise and fall of the EKC, there remains a second-order question and decades of data: how do the theoretical perspectives of these contenders shape what their protagonists do and don't see? How have they mistaken episodes of "talking past each other" for genuine dialogue? Which perspective has had the biggest impact on the other’s way of thinking? A qualitative and quantitative analysis compares the top-ranking journals in economics with interdisciplinary journals of environmental economics revealing a categorical divergence in the types of critical thought deployed in the EKC debate over an almost 15 year period. The few articles appearing in the top ranking economic journals systematically fail to grasp the fundamentals of ecology which is evident in both their measurements and conclusions. I offer an abridged discussion of the critiques socio-ecology presents contemporary economics as what, in Kuhnian terminology, may well be described as a discipline in the crisis moment of a paradigm shift in no particular direction. I then conclude by siding with Habermas and Adorno against Popper's ideologically impoverished “falsifactionism”: progress in science depends as much on a theory of ideological critique as it does on the acquisition of technical knowledge. My intent has been to argue that ideological critique is empirically possible as the history of thought.

The commodification of culture, space, and resources is incentivized by neoliberal urbanism. In response, we have seen an attempt to develop collectively organized, oppositional spaces within urban places. The tensions that arise when considering the production of commons in the development of the neoliberal city are the central focus of this paper. As I will observe, these spaces are subjected to commodification as they become increasingly de-politicized through neoliberal ideologies. In order to theorize about these contradictory elements, I observe a makerspace in Richmond, Virginia called HackRVA. Specifically, I consider HackRVA as an urban commons. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, I consider how HackRVA engages with the neoliberal city of Richmond and how the organization and maintenance of their space and their community reflects commoning as social reproduction. I find that HackRVA’s relationship to the city is complicated as the community within the space both contests and assimilates to the creative economy.