This thesis interrogates the website BlueServo.net through a neoliberal framework with a focus on surveillance theory. BlueServo is a site that registers users as "Virtual Deputies" and allows them to file reports with U.S. Border Patrol on activity observed through camera feeds trained on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Employing textual analysis of the site and its attendant Facebook page, four thematic categories emerge for analysis: Labor, Entertainment, State, and Social Sorting. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the site in relation to reality TV and video game culture and the future of increasingly sophisticated and widely accessible digital surveillance as applied to social minorities.

This thesis examines how Friedrich Hayek’s concern with free market action led him to adopt a neo-roman concept of liberty and it traces how this development informed his view of the relationship between government, democracy and the economy. For Hayek, liberalism that made freedom in economic life its core concern was the ‘true’ liberalism, and he distinguished this from a ‘false’ liberalism that advocated government action as a means of enabling ‘self-development’. Influenced by Carl Schmitt, Hayek viewed the democratic process as encouraging false liberalism. Recognising the contested nature of liberalism, over the course of the 1940s and ‘50s he set out to decontest it: to win acceptance of his definition of the tradition. He sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of his true liberalism with reference to intellectual history and the work of Whig authors. It was in their work that Hayek came into contact with the neo-roman concept of liberty. Theirs however was a partial interpretation of Roman liberty. The generally privileged status of the Whig authors, combined with a genuine fear of government, resulted in a focus on the danger of public power, or imperium, to the exclusion of private power, or dominium. This complemented Hayek’s own opposition to government economic activity. This thesis contends that arriving at a concept of liberty was the pivotal point in Hayek’s intellectual career. From then on his work ceased to be defensive. Instead, despondent at the growing appeal of social justice in the 1960s and alarmed at union influence and inflation in the ‘70s, he actively promoted an alternative free market vision. This culminated in his intellectual emergency equipment: the ‘denationalisation of money’ and ‘a model constitution’. Informed by his partial version of the neo-roman concept, he advocated a weak state and a curtailment of democratic power. Despite his strong focus on imperium there are points in Hayek’s thought at which he recognises that private power can also pose a threat to free market action. This thesis concludes with the suggestion that integrating a more comprehensive version of the neo-roman concept of liberty into Hayek’s thought results in a very different vision of the appropriate relationship between government, democracy and the economy to the one he developed.

Esta Dissertação consiste em um estudo sobre trabalhos acadêmicos que abordam a relação entre universidade e desenvolvimento, a partir do anseio da autora de romper com o senso comum e compreender a essência dessa relação tomada como algo bom e naturalizado. Para tanto, foram selecionados e sintetizados 39 trabalhos acadêmicos referentes ao tema, a partir do banco de dados de periódicos do portal Scielo, Capes e Google Acadêmico. Diante do argumento comum desses trabalhos, de que a universidade é impulsionadora do desenvolvimento, sendo este compreendido como um processo voltado para o crescimento econômico e, em decorrência, para o mercado, a universidade é tratada como um ator social imprescindível, voltando suas práticas nesse sentido. Por conseguinte, a compreensão sobre o que caracteriza o neoliberalismo foi essencial para compreender a influência do mercado nessa proposição, visto que o neoliberalismo constitui um projeto sócio-político de sujeição e subordinação ao mercado que tem o discurso do desenvolvimento como estratégia legitimadora, com um sentido positivo inquestionavelmente necessário. Devido a conexão do desenvolvimento com o progresso, a competividade, a acumulação, a ordem e o controle social, a relação entre universidade e desenvolvimento não pode ser tratada como neutra e desinteressada. Assim, ao comparar as proposições dos trabalhos com o referencial do neoliberalismo, foi possível romper com as pré-noções iniciais, o senso comum e desnaturalizar o sentido dessa relação pela perspectiva crítica. / This Dissertation consist of a study of academic works about the relationship between university and development, from the desire of the author of disrupting with common sense and understanding the essence of this relationship, usually taken as beneficial and naturalized. For that, thirty-nine studies were selected and summarized from Scielo, Capes and Google Scholar databases. Based on the common argument among the reviewed papers, that the university is propeller of development, which is understood as a process towards economic growth and, consequently, to the market, the university is treated as an indispensable social actor, turning their practices in this sense. Therefore, the understanding of what characterizes neoliberalism was essential to comprehend the influence of the market on that proposition, as it constitutes a socio-political project of subjection and subordination to the market that has the development discourse as legitimating strategy, with a positive direction unquestionably necessary. Because of the connection between development and progress, competitiveness, accumulation, order and social control, the relationship between university and development cannot be treated as neutral and disinterested. Thus, when comparing the propositions with the reviewed papers to the neoliberalism referential, it was possible to break with initial pre-notions and common sense, and unveil the meaning of this relationship from the critical perspective.

Esta Dissertação consiste em um estudo sobre trabalhos acadêmicos que abordam a relação entre universidade e desenvolvimento, a partir do anseio da autora de romper com o senso comum e compreender a essência dessa relação tomada como algo bom e naturalizado. Para tanto, foram selecionados e sintetizados 39 trabalhos acadêmicos referentes ao tema, a partir do banco de dados de periódicos do portal Scielo, Capes e Google Acadêmico. Diante do argumento comum desses trabalhos, de que a universidade é impulsionadora do desenvolvimento, sendo este compreendido como um processo voltado para o crescimento econômico e, em decorrência, para o mercado, a universidade é tratada como um ator social imprescindível, voltando suas práticas nesse sentido. Por conseguinte, a compreensão sobre o que caracteriza o neoliberalismo foi essencial para compreender a influência do mercado nessa proposição, visto que o neoliberalismo constitui um projeto sócio-político de sujeição e subordinação ao mercado que tem o discurso do desenvolvimento como estratégia legitimadora, com um sentido positivo inquestionavelmente necessário. Devido a conexão do desenvolvimento com o progresso, a competividade, a acumulação, a ordem e o controle social, a relação entre universidade e desenvolvimento não pode ser tratada como neutra e desinteressada. Assim, ao comparar as proposições dos trabalhos com o referencial do neoliberalismo, foi possível romper com as pré-noções iniciais, o senso comum e desnaturalizar o sentido dessa relação pela perspectiva crítica. / This Dissertation consist of a study of academic works about the relationship between university and development, from the desire of the author of disrupting with common sense and understanding the essence of this relationship, usually taken as beneficial and naturalized. For that, thirty-nine studies were selected and summarized from Scielo, Capes and Google Scholar databases. Based on the common argument among the reviewed papers, that the university is propeller of development, which is understood as a process towards economic growth and, consequently, to the market, the university is treated as an indispensable social actor, turning their practices in this sense. Therefore, the understanding of what characterizes neoliberalism was essential to comprehend the influence of the market on that proposition, as it constitutes a socio-political project of subjection and subordination to the market that has the development discourse as legitimating strategy, with a positive direction unquestionably necessary. Because of the connection between development and progress, competitiveness, accumulation, order and social control, the relationship between university and development cannot be treated as neutral and disinterested. Thus, when comparing the propositions with the reviewed papers to the neoliberalism referential, it was possible to break with initial pre-notions and common sense, and unveil the meaning of this relationship from the critical perspective.

This work describes ethnographic research completed in order to understand how local community members in Denton, Texas define, conceptualize, and speak about sustainability. The goal of this research is to encourage a more representative approach to sustainability initiatives within the City of Denton by uniting community ideas with local governance. Data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with residents, participant observation at community meetings, and quantitative survey analysis. Through the use of a Foucauldian framework for analysis, in conjunction with David Harvey's "entrepreneurial city," and work done in the field of environmental justice, this study highlights a potential link between neoliberal approaches to city governance and community perceptions of sustainability. This research concludes by calling for more representation of all community members within local sustainability initiatives, and provides several suggestions for how this can be achieved.

The conditionality agreements of the International Monetary Fund have received a significant amount of criticism from the 1980s and 1990s and into the 2000s.  Critics have found little reassurance from the IMF\'s attempts to reform conditionality after 2000.  The 1980s marked a time where conditionality on IMF loans required structural adjustment and the imposition of austere fiscal measures.  The streamlining initiative in 2000 possessed only slight quantitative modification to lending conditionality.  However, recent changes in the Fund\'s lending policy occuring between 2007 and 2012 may finally display the institution\'s ability to listen, learn, and adapt policy toward a conditionality regime utilizing policy outside of the neoliberal framework.  This thesis examines these new policies and their implications for neoliberalism where the term represents an approach to economic growth that demands privatization, deregulation, and  weakening the role of the public sector.  It provides a history of conditionality reforms and positions the most recent reforms in lending policy in the evolving neoliberal context. / Master of Arts

No / The volume, which this chapter forms a part, explores how the idea of civil society has been translated in different cultural contexts and examines its impact on politics worldwide. Comparing and contrasting civil society in Latin America and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States, Africa and South Asia, and the Middle East, the contributors show that there are multiple interpretations of the concept that depend more on the particular political configuration in different parts of the world than on cultural predilections. They also demonstrate that the power of civil society depends less on abstract definitions, and more on the extent to which it is grounded in the context of actual experiences from around the world. This book includes some of the biggest names in the area such as Mary Kaldor, Ronnie Lipschutz and Helmut Anheier.

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Leftist governments are not very popular in media. However, South America seems to have ignored the critics and has elected several left wing governments in the recent years. This is also the case of Ecuador, a relatively small country, which has gone through interesting political and economic reforms since 2007. This thesis will try to evaluate the economic performance of Ecuador after this change happened, within the context of the general regime change to leftist or anti-neoliberal policies in the rest of the South American continent. The performance will be first compared between the countries according to their government's ideology through an econometric analysis of a group of economic, socio-economic and perceptual variables. After that, a more detailed analysis will be performed on Ecuador's indicators. Interestingly, results show an overall improvement of economic and socio-economic conditions in the countries under the leftist rule, which relies on a strong civic support, compared to the countries still following the neoliberal policies. The case study of Ecuador pretends to provide an example. of a successful performance since the country turned left in 2007.While this area is rarely analyzed, this thesis contributes some knowledge to the field about effectiveness of the current political economy in Latin America Moreover, it contributes to undermine critics often widespread in the media in cooperation with certain states and organizations for keeping the current unequal distribution of power and wealth intact.