The Political Economy of Famine: The Ukrainian Famine of 1933

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-197
Author(s):  
Natalya Naumenko
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Excess Deaths

The 1933 Ukrainian famine killed as many as 2.6 million people out of a population of 32 million. Historians offer three main explanations: weather, economic policies, genocide. This paper documents that (1) available data do not support weather as the main explanation: 1931 and 1932 weather predicts harvest roughly equal to the 1924–1929 average; weather explains up to 8.1 percent of excess deaths. (2) Policies (collectivization of agriculture and the lack of favored industries) significantly increased famine mortality; collectivization explains up to 52 percent of excess deaths. (3) There is some evidence that ethnic Ukrainians and Germans were discriminated against.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of the European Economic and Monetary Union: Political Sources of an Economic Liability

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Feldstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Structural Unemployment ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Political Sources ◽  
Trade And Investment

EMU would be an economic liability. A single currency would cause, at most, small trade and investment gains but would raise average cyclical unemployment and possibly raise inflation, perpetuate structural unemployment, and increase the risk of protectionism. EMU is nevertheless being pursued in order to create a political union. Fundamental disagreements among member states about economic policies, foreign and military policies, and the sharing of political power are likely to create future intra-European conflicts. A United Europe would be a formidable participant in the twenty-first century's global balance of power, with uncertain consequences for world stability and peace.

The Political Economy of Commercial Associations: Building the National Board of Trade, 1840–1868

2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-783
Author(s):  
Cory Davis
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
National Board ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
National Economic ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Commercial Organizations

This article argues that, in the mid-nineteenth century, the American merchant community created local commercial organizations to propagate a vision of economic development based on republican ideals. As part of a “business revolution,” these organizations attempted to balance competition and cooperation in order to promote and direct the expansion of national markets and commercial activity throughout the country. Faced with the crisis of divergent sectional political economies and committed to the belief that businessmen needed a stronger political voice, merchant groups banded together to form the National Board of Trade, an association devoted to creating a unified commercial interest and shaping national economic policies.

Global Capital Disguised as Sustainability in Post-Earthquake Haiti

2018 ◽  
pp. 182-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran C. Jayaram
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Disaster Capitalism ◽  
Development Plans

This chapter offers a staggering critique of post-earthquake development plans in Haiti. In the wake of the Haitian earthquake, Haiti became an example of disaster capitalism in action. Kiran Jayaram argues that the idea of sustainability, as in new plans for mango production, has been co-opted, becoming code for the continuation of exploitative economic policies within the political economy.

The Internal and External Face of New Labour's Political Economy

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coates ◽  
Colin Hay
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
External Face ◽  
Intellectual Disciplines

To Grasp Fully The Nature And Significance Of The Economic policies at the heart of dominant political projects, those policies have to be studied in the round. They have to be grasped as complex totalities which touch all aspects of the political agenda; and they have to be seen as constructed and contested wholes, whose contradictions, internal inconsistencies and conceptual limits are as vital to their trajectory as are their axioms, theories and content. Academically and professionally, the study of policy in this rounded way is often a more difficult task to complete than might be expected, in part because of the powerful divisions within and between the intellectual disciplines which comprise the social sciences.

Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia. Part I: Domestic Class Structure, Latin-American Trends, and Capitalist Imperialism

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery Webber
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
General Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
Constituent Assembly

AbstractThis article, which will appear in three parts over three issues of Historical Materialism, presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year (January 2006–January 2007) of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers, at a general level, the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. These considerations are then grounded in analyses of the 2000–5 revolutionary epoch, the 18 December 2005 elections, the social origins and trajectory of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) as a party, the complexities of the relationship between indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation, the process of the Constituent Assembly, the political economy of natural gas and oil, the rise of an autonomist right-wing movement, US imperialism, and Bolivia's relations with Venezuela and Cuba. The central argument is that the economic policies of the new government exhibit important continuities with the inherited neoliberal model and that advancing the project of indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation will require renewed self-activity, self-organisation and strategic mobilisation of popular left-indigenous forces autonomous from the MAS government.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of the Violence in Syria: An Impact-Based Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51
Author(s):  
Abdallah Imam Haruna
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
War Economy ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
Syrian Arab Republic ◽  
Pull Through

The civil war that has engulfed the Syrian Arab Republic, since March 2011, is set to unleash a lasting effect on both the political and socio-economic trajectories of the country. The country’s political and economic challenges would be in dire need of outside-the-box curatives long after the violence activities are over. In other words, the political economy of Syria would encounter a set of unparalleled interconnected difficulties that cannot be unriddled by a simple prescription of traditional textbook economic policies. Even though the Syrian economy was able to weather the global economic recession in 2008, it is apparent that, if the country wants to pull through future economic shocks while upholding both political and social stability it desires, then it needs to overhaul its administrative and economic structures. The country’s economy was already in dire difficulties long before the conflict. The most important foreign exchange earner of the country was oil, but production was in sharp decline. In the 1990s, oil output almost doubled. However, in 2002, it fell from a peak of 677,000 barrels per day. Again, only 327,000 bpd were produced in 2011. The civil war has killed over a million Syrians and displaced more than 5.5 million citizens of the country. The country’s economy slumped by over 80 percent from 2010 to 2019. The extreme violence that dominated the scene in Syria has shifted attention away from the deep structural transformations affecting the country’s economy and governance structures. Now that violence has considerably subsided, these are becoming more visible. Much has been written about the ethnic and sectarian divisions in the conflict in Syria. However, very little attention is given to its political economy, which is very crucial in understanding the taproots of the ongoing war. The contraction of the economy of the country and the emergence of a war economy have seriously affected the composition and stratification of the political economy of Syria. This study seeks to examine the political economy of the Syrian civil war, including the exposition of the conditions of the Syrian economy before and during the war, the changing dynamics of the war, and the roles of external players.

The Reckoning, I

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Severe Recession

This chapter explores the larger consequences of contentment. The United States now has a democracy of the contented and the comfortable, who monopolize or largely monopolize the political franchise. In contrast, the uncomfortable and the distressed of the poor urban and rural slums and those who identify with their bad fortune do not vote because they have no candidates that will represent their needs. The chapter first considers the self-corrective capacity of democracy as it relates to the culture of contentment before discussing how the short-run economic policies of contentment, protected by the accommodation of economics to comfort, could bring eventual economic discomfort. It also looks at inflation as a threat to the culture of contentment and the ways that a severe recession or depression could change the political economy of contentment.

Economic Crisis and Political Response: The Political Economy of the Shipping Act of 1916

1999 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 861-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sicotte
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Shipping Company ◽  
Political Response ◽  
Party Loyalty ◽  
Crisis Situations

Governments often respond to crisis situations with radical economic policies. The Shipping Act of 1916 created a government-owned shipping company. This significant departure from prior policy arose in the atmosphere of crisis surrounding the war in Europe. The Wilson Administration was able to use political institutions to its advantage and ensure that alternative, more moderate proposals would not be considered by the legislature. Initially thwarted by a filibuster, the administration was forced to compromise in order to maintain party loyalty and pass the bill in 1916.

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