Please join us for our last meeting of the Money, Markets, and Governance Workshop on Tuesday, November 28, at 5 – 6:30 PM, in the Social Science Research Building, room 401. This meeting will be held as a joint session with the Historical Capitalisms Workshop, and we are honored to have a special guest and an old friend of the workshop, Prof. Bob Meister, who will present a chapter from his new book (in print)

Robert Meister

Professor of Social and Political Thought, History of Consciousness, UCSC 

Justice as an Option

Discussant: Yaniv Ron-El
PhD Student, Sociology, University of Chicago

Abstract: This chapter proposes that we consider historical justice dynamically as, itself, an option that has a present value even when it can’t be exercised. In describing historical justice as an option, I’m saying that past injustice confers what financial economists would call a conditional (or “state-contingent”) right to “put” the past injustice back to its present beneficiaries at a price above its market value at the time the put is exercised. Drawing on deliberately politicized interpretations of financial theory and technologies, and of the U.S. government’s interventions during and following the financial crisis of a decade ago, the paper argues that advocates for greater justice should not dismiss technologies of finance merely because they notice their dependence on the government, but rather leverage this to fact to political advantage. The question of historical justice can be reanimated for our time by focusing attention on the social machinery by which unequal wealth is preserved and accumulated.

For accessibility or other concerns, please contact the workshop administrator: yanivr {at} uchicago {dot} edu

Please join us for our next meeting on the Money, Markets, and Governance Workshop on Tuesday, October 31, at 5 – 6:30 PM, in the Social Science Research Building, room 401.

Kristin Surak

Associate Professor, SOAS, University of London

Jus Pecuniae and the Crystallization of Citizenship by Investment

Discussant: Yuna Blajer de la Garza
PhD Student, Political Science, The University of Chicago

Abstract: What explains the rapid rise of citizenship by investment programs and what are the implications for citizenship more broadly? Moving beyond the existing scholarship on the sale of  citizenship – largely theoretical and normative – this article draws on two years of fieldwork to specify the distinct properties of citizenship as a commodity and identify the internal and external determinants of its value. The analysis situates formal citizenship by investment programs within a broader field encompassing immigrant investor visas and discretionary economic citizenship. It reveals how this field conditioned the development and spread of formal programs, and the roles of geopolitical inequalities, industry actors, and extra-territorial rights in this change. The conclusion shows how trends in jus pecuniae are indicative of transformations in citizenship in three domains: inequality, third-party actors, and territoriality.

For accessibility issues or other concerns please contact the workshop coordinator: yanivr {at} uchicago {dot} edu

You are join us on Tuesday, October 10, at 5 – 6:30 PM, for a joint session with the Power, History and Society workshop to discuss Le Lin’s paper. The workshop will take place in the Social Science Research Building, room 401 (and not as was announced earlier).

Le Lin

Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2017)

Are Ambiguities Assets? State, Innovation and Privatization in China

Discussant: Maryam Alemzadeh
PhD Student, Sociology, The University of Chicago

*Co-hosted with Power, History and Society Worksohp*

Abstract: This paper examines whether and how ambiguities lead to organizational innovation. Previous literature tend to either deny their relationship, or only attribute the role of ambiguities to recombination/transposition as a result of network overlap. I argue that how ambiguities are associated with innovation is also contingent upon the state. State is not only a direct source of ambiguities, but it can also create macro-conditions that tolerate ambiguities. My empirical evidences come from China’s education and training industry and similar industries that are ambiguous on multiple dimensions. These ambiguous industries attracted marginal entrepreneurs, which contributed to practices that were nonconforming with formal regulations and informal norms. Under state-induced ambiguities, nonconforming practices were less likely to be sanctioned and even made more effective in securing critical resources. State-conferred legitimacy became less relevant under state-induced ambiguities. Consequently, nonconforming enterprises, as prototypical private enterprises, gained market leader status. During this process, their nonconforming practices developed into and sustained as innovations of the field. The rise of nonconforming enterprises also changed the rules of the game and pushed the privatization of the industry. I discuss the implication of my findings for the conceptualization of innovation and China’s privatization at the end.

For concerns regarding accessibility or any others, please contact the coordinator at yaniv {at} uchicago {dot} edu