Based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, People's Republic of China, I offer a reading of Reform and Opening (Gaige Kaifang) in terms of how individuals recognized, manipulated, avoided, and responded to the Chinese state apparatus during the Deng...

The dissertation explores the problem of institution-building in nascent capitalist economies, with the emphasis on the role of culture in the genesis of new institutional forms. To help better understand the nature of the post-communist transformation in Russia, I address the questions of...

This dissertation explores the role of efficiency of redistributive institutions (ERI)on redistribution. The first substantive essay proposes a theoretical model to explain thelack of strong empirical evidence in favor of a positive relationship between incomeinequality and redistribution. This...

Reducing energy demand and increasing energy efficiency are seen as major elements of the ongoing transformation of energy systems in multiple national and international programs like the EU 20-20-20 targets. Despite the predominately socio-economic nature of energy demand such interdisciplinary...

This dissertation addresses the problem of informational and legal restrictions on employment screening processes such as educational requirements and standardized testing. For the past two decades, the legal system in the U.S. has struggled with this issue and has labeled certain information or...

The proportion of a unit of government's budget devoted to labor costs determines whether cost reductions at the metropolitan level are achieved through fragmentation or consolidation. Consolidating capital intense functions at higher levels of government is the optimal cost-reducing strategy....

Abramson and Inglehart find a significant trend toward postmaterialist values in Western Europe, which they argue is largely driven by the gradual processes of generational replacement. Clarke, Dutt, and Rapkin argue that this trend is a methodological artifact of the wording of Inglehart's...

The transfer of government services to the private sector, or privatization as it is generally called, has received considerable attention in recent years. However, few attempts have been made to investigate the issue from a labor relations perspective. This dissertation attempts to alleviate...

A politikatudományban gyakran feltett kérdés, hogy miként kapcsolható össze a legfőbb jó, a közjó az egyén közösségi létével, politikai cselekvésével, vagy még tömörebben fogalmazva: miként kapcsolódik egymáshoz a közösség és az egyén. Az egyén-közösség kapcsolat...