The moral economy of social media

In this chapter we take a high-level view of social media, focusing not on specific applications, domains, websites, or technologies, but instead our interest is in the forms of engagement that social media engender. This is not to suggest that all social media are the same, or even that everyone’s experience with any particular medium or technology is the same. However, we argue common issues arise that characterize social media in a broad sense, and provide a different analytic perspective than we would gain from looking at particular systems or applications. We do not take the perspective that social life merely happens “within” such systems, nor that social life “shapes” such systems, but rather these systems provide a site for the production of social and cultural reality – that media are always already social and the engagement with, in, and through media of all sorts is a thoroughly social phenomenon. Accordingly, in this chapter, we examine two phenomena concurrently: social life seen through the lens of social media, and social media seen through the lens of social life. In particular, we want to understand the ways that a set of broad phenomena concerning forms of participation in social life is articulated in the domain of social media. As a conceptual entry-point, we use the notion of the “moral economy” as a means to open up the domain of inquiry. We first discuss the notion of the “moral economy” as it has been used by a number of social theorists, and then identify a particular set of conceptual concerns that we suggest link it to the phenomena of social networking in general. We then discuss a series of examples drawn from a range of studies to elaborate and ground this conceptual framework in empirical data. This leads us to a broader consideration of audiences and publics in social media that, we suggest, holds important lessons for how we treat social media analytically.

Tax evasion, inequality, and progressive taxes : a political economy perspective

The standard approach to tax compliance applies the economics-of-crime methodology pioneered by Becker (1968): in its first application, due to Allingham and Sandmo (1972) it models the behaviour of agents as a decision involving a choice of the extent of their income to report to tax authorities, given a certain institutional environment, represented by parameters such as the probability of detection and penalties in the event the agent is caught. While this basic framework yields important insights on tax compliance behavior, it has some critical limitations. Specifically, it indicates a level of compliance that is significantly below what is observed in the data. This thesis revisits the original framework with a view towards addressing this issue, and examining the political economy implications of tax evasion for progressivity in the tax structure. The approach followed involves building a macroeconomic, dynamic equilibrium model for the purpose of examining these issues, by using a step-wise model building procedure starting with some very simple variations of the basic Allingham and Sandmo construct, which are eventually integrated to a dynamic general equilibrium overlapping generations framework with heterogeneous agents. One of the variations involves incorporating the Allingham and Sandmo construct into a two-period model of a small open economy of the type originally attributed to Fisher (1930). A further variation of this simple construct involves allowing agents to initially decide whether to evade taxes or not. In the event they decide to evade, the agents then have to decide the extent of income or wealth they wish to under-report. We find that the ‘evade or not’ assumption has strikingly different and more realistic implications for the extent of evasion, and demonstrate that it is a more appropriate modeling strategy in the context of macroeconomic models, which are essentially dynamic in nature, and involve consumption smoothing across time and across various states of nature. Specifically, since deciding to undertake tax evasion impacts on the consumption smoothing ability of the agent by creating two states of nature in which the agent is ‘caught’ or ‘not caught’, there is a possibility that their utility under certainty, when they choose not to evade, is higher than the expected utility obtained when they choose to evade. Furthermore, the simple two-period model incorporating an ‘evade or not’ choice can be used to demonstrate some strikingly different political economy implications relative to its Allingham and Sandmo counterpart. In variations of the two models that allow for voting on the tax parameter, we find that agents typically choose to vote for a high degree of progressivity by choosing the highest available tax rate from the menu of choices available to them. There is, however, a small range of inequality levels for which agents in the ‘evade or not’ model vote for a relatively low value of the tax rate. The final steps in the model building procedure involve grafting the two-period models with a political economy choice into a dynamic overlapping generations setting with more general, non-linear tax schedules and a ‘cost-of evasion’ function that is increasing in the extent of evasion. Results based on numerical simulations of these models show further improvement in the model’s ability to match empirically plausible levels of tax evasion. In addition, the differences between the political economy implications of the ‘evade or not’ version of the model and its Allingham and Sandmo counterpart are now very striking; there is now a large range of values of the inequality parameter for which agents in the ‘evade or not’ model vote for a low degree of progressivity. This is because, in the ‘evade or not’ version of the model, low values of the tax rate encourages a large number of agents to choose the ‘not-evade’ option, so that the redistributive mechanism is more ‘efficient’ relative to the situations in which tax rates are high. Some further implications of the models of this thesis relate to whether variations in the level of inequality, and parameters such as the probability of detection and penalties for tax evasion matter for the political economy results. We find that (i) the political economy outcomes for the tax rate are quite insensitive to changes in inequality, and (ii) the voting outcomes change in non-monotonic ways in response to changes in the probability of detection and penalty rates. Specifically, the model suggests that changes in inequality should not matter, although the political outcome for the tax rate for a given level of inequality is conditional on whether there is a large or small or large extent of evasion in the economy. We conclude that further theoretical research into macroeconomic models of tax evasion is required to identify the structural relationships underpinning the link between inequality and redistribution in the presence of tax evasion. The models of this thesis provide a necessary first step in that direction.

Militarism and International Relations : Political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, 212 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-61491-7

An engaging narrative is maintained throughout this edited collection of articles that address the issue of militarism in international relations. The book seamlessly integrates historical and contemporary perspectives on militarism with theory and relevant international case studies, resulting in a very informative read. The work is comprised of three parts. Part 1 deals with the theorisation of militarism and includes chapters by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Martin Shaw, Simon Dalby, and Nicola Short. It covers a range of topics relating to historical and contemporary theories of militarism, geopolitical threat construction, political economy, and the US military’s ‘cultural turn’.

Redistribution and technology adoption under uncertainty : a political economy perspective

We examine the role of politico-economic influences on macroeconomic performance within the framework of an endogenous growth model with costly technology adoption and uncertainty. The model is aimed at understanding the diversity in growth and inequality experiences across countries. Agents adopt either of two risky technologies, one of which is only available through financial intermediaries, who are able to alleviate some of this risk. The entry cost of financial intermediation depends on the proportion of government revenue that is allocated towards cost-reducing financial development expenditure, and agents vote on this proportion. The results show that agents at the top and bottom ends of the distribution prefer alternative means of re-distribution, thereby effectively blocking the allocation of resources towards cost-reducing financial development expenditure. Thus political factors have a role in delaying financial and capital deepening and economic development. Furthermore, the model provides a political-economy perspective on the Kuznets curve; uncertainty interacts with the political economy mechanism to produce transitional inequality patterns that, depending on initial conditions, can unearth the Kuznets-curve experience. Finally, the political outcomes are inefficient relative to policies aimed at maximizing the collective welfare of agents in the economy.

Cultural content matters: A critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum

A theoretical rationale, policy analysis and research agenda for a critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum, outlining the agenda for a political economy of textbooks.

Plagiarism 2.0 : the new economy of academic dishonesty

As a writer, teacher and scholar of ‘the knowledge economy’ in the broadest sense, plagiarism fascinates me. I first encountered plagiarism in my Year 12 English class. We had been working for weeks writing poems and had submitted them to our teacher Mr How for assessment. Mr How was generally a pleasant individual who I remember as one of my favourite school teachers; however, he did not suffer fools easily. The time arrived for each of us to read our work to the class. Year 12 poetry being what it usually is, most of our efforts tended to blur into an angsty, slightly pretentious, self-important mess (similar to staff meetings in many university departments). However, one student’s poem stood out. It was emotive, insightful and economical in its use of language … and best of all, it did not suck! The poem’s author was one of the class’ biggest jocks, and not usually one to display such sensitivity, so we were all a little taken aback by what we were hearing. Stunned silence! At the poem’s conclusion, Mr How congratulated the student on such an excellent effort and produced a copy of the collected works of Emily Dickenson (if I remember correctly) from under his desk. He asked the student to turn to a page he had marked and recite the poem printed there. It was, of course, the same one the student had passed off as his. This time, there was no stunned silence: just the sound of remorseful sobs from our jock-poet-plagiarist who had been exposed in front of his classmates.

Easy data, hard data : the politics and pragmatics of Twitter research after the computational turn

In this chapter, we draw out the relevant themes from a range of critical scholarship from the small body of digital media and software studies work that has focused on the politics of Twitter data and the sociotechnical means by which access is regulated. We highlight in particular the contested relationships between social media research (in both academic and non-academic contexts) and the data wholesale, retail, and analytics industries that feed on them. In the second major section of the chapter we discuss in detail the pragmatic edge of these politics in terms of what kinds of scientific research is and is not possible in the current political economy of Twitter data access. Finally, at the end of the chapter we return to the much broader implications of these issues for the politics of knowledge, demonstrating how the apparently microscopic level of how the Twitter API mediates access to Twitter data actually inscribes and influences the macro level of the global political economy of science itself, through re-inscribing institutional and traditional disciplinary privilege We conclude with some speculations about future developments in data rights and data philanthropy that may at least mitigate some of these negative impacts.

Local exchange in the southern levant during the early bronze age: a political economy viewpoint

Trade and relations between the southern Levant and other regions of the Near East (mainly Egypt) during the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3,600–2,300 BC) have been the subject of many studies. Research concerning the exchange of local commodities was almost ignored or was discussed in parochial studies, focusing on specific archaeological finds. It is the intention of this paper to present the results of recent research of the exchange of commodities provided by archaeological data from excavations in the Southern Levant with regard to economic theories on the exchange-value of goods and exchange networks. Conclusions regarding the type of society and the forms of government in the Southern Levant during the Early Bronze Age are also presented.

Vietnam’s political economy: a discussion on the 1986-2016 period

Being a member of the thriving ASEAN and successfully implementing economic renovation (Doi Moi) have drawn the world's attention on Vietnam around the turn of the millennium. Some even expected a much faster pace of transformation, and renewed economic, AND political, reforms in Vietnam, or Doi Moi II.However, in the recent transition turmoil the Vietnamese economy has experienced some significant setback, and the solution for getting the country out of the downward spiral of low productivity, waning purchasing power and increasing costs of doing business cannot be worked out without addressing those political economy issues that have shaped the modus operandi of the nation's economic system. This article discusses the post-Doi Moi political economy in Vietnam, from 1986 to 2016 – when the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam takes place – and prospects of reviving reform momentum in subsequent years.

Super-villains of the "real world": the political use of the characterization of villains in Chistopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy"

It is almost a tradition that celluloid (or digital) villains are represented with some characteristics that remind us the real political enemies of the producer country of the film, or even enemies within the country according to the particular ideology that sustains the film. The case of Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy, analyzed here, is representative of this trend for two reasons. First, because it gets marked by political radicalization conducted by the US government after the attack of September 11, 2001. Secondly, because it offers a profuse gallery of villains who are outside the circle of friends as the new doctrine “either with us or against us” opened by George Bush for the XXI century. This gallery includes from the very terrorists who justify the War on Terror (Ra's al Ghul, the Joker), to the “radical left” (Bane, Talia al Ghul) including liberal politicians (Harvey Dent), and corrupt that take advantage of the softness of the law to commit crimes with impunity (Dr. Crane, the Scarecrow).

Pierre Bourdieu as a Sociologist of the Economy and Critic of 'Globalisation'

This article examines Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of the economy and his more recent politically engaged interventions on 'globalisation'. Many scholars regard these as not being in the same academic league as his classic studies on taste, academia, and state elites, etc., and, instead, dismiss them as a private matter or even, as the spleen of Pierre Bourdieu, the individual. This paper questions this disjunction of the 'academic' and 'politically engaged' sides of Pierre Bourdieu's work. First, it argues that his most recent interventions against a neo-liberal globalisation were the logical result of a particular definition of intellectual practice that had been outlined before in his sociology of the intellectual field. It then demonstrates that Bourdieu's economic sociology and critique of contemporary capitalism not only does not contradict his earlier research, but that it provides valuable and original insights into the current transformation of the political economy of the advanced capitalist countries. The paper concludes with a suggestion of how to strengthen the theoretical foundation of Bourdieu's analysis of contemporary capitalism by relating it to and making it compatible with alternative approaches in the tradition of critical political economy.