The Alliance for Progress and Housing Policy in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires in the 1960s

This article explores the construction of publicly financed low-income housing complexes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1960s. These housing developments were possible thanks to the arrival of foreign economic and technical assistance from the Alliance for Progress. Urban scholars, politicians, diplomats and urbanists of the Americas sought to promote middle-class habits, mass consumption and moderate political behaviour, especially among the poor, by expanding access to homeownership and ‘decent’ living conditions for a burgeoning urban population. As a result, the history of low-income housing should be understood within broader transnational discourses and practices about the ‘modernization’ and ‘development’ of the urban poor.

Druze linguistic landscape in Israel: indexicality of new ethnolinguistic identity boundaries

The Druze community in Israel is a distinct religious community currently undergoing important ethnolinguistic shifts. The government's implementation of an official policy has led to the deconstruction and reshaping of the Druze political and national identity to one that differs substantially from that of the Palestinian minority in Israel. In this study, I argue that the visibility, vitality and appreciation of Hebrew in the Druze linguistic landscape are indicative of new ethnolinguistic boundaries of the Druze identity in Israel. The fact that the Druze in Israel are dispersed throughout the Galilee and Mount Carmel area and experience varying levels of language contact as well as divergent economic relations with their Palestinian–Israeli and Jewish–Israeli neighbors suggests that one cannot expect uniformity in the Druze linguistic markets or the processes of social, cultural and linguistic identification. This study will show that Hebrew has become a dominant component of the linguistic repertoire and social identity of the Druze in the Mount Carmel area since it has become the first choice of communication as the linguistic landscape indicates.

Effectively Engaging with a Dragon: Examining the Nature and Impact of the Most Recent Decade of Sino-African Multilateral Relations

The goal of my research is to examine in detail the impact of the increase in Sino-African trade on African political and economic development. The primary focus will be on two central aspects of Sino-African trade: the effects of China’s natural resource binge coupled with the flood of textiles and other manufactured goods from China to Africa. This thesis will determine the precise nature and extent ofSino-African trade in these sectors and will attempt to determine whether or not Chinese trade is having a net positive impact on long-term African economic development. I will investigate this issue from numerous perspectives using English, Chinese, and African sources.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth

Over the past four decades, the number of democracies in the world has increased exponentially. This project considers how democracy and FDI affect economic growth as well as whether the impact of FDI depends on the level of democracy in a country. Thus, I explore two major research questions: 1) Whether increased FDI speeds up economic growth, controlling for political regime type, urbanization and other developmental indicators; and 2) Whether an increase in political freedom helps or hinders economic growth, and specifically whether the impact of FDI varies depending on the political regime in the recipient country. To examine these questions, this paper used data from 150 countries over a period between 1980 and 2010 and utilized several models, testing variables such as institutions, agglomerations, urbanization, FDI and type of political regime, among others, for their impact on economic growth. I found that FDI does have a positive impact on economic growth, and that this impact is often magnified when it interacts with other relevant factors. I also found that, after controlling for other variables, FDI inflows do not have a different impact on economic growth in autocracies than they do in democracies. This may be partially explained by autocratic outliers such as China and the OPEC states, which have recently experienced rapid export-led growth. This suggests that factors such as education could have a greater impact on a country¿s economic growth than does its political system.