Studies of African development convey both the triumphs and struggles in achieving the viability of local, small economic actors within a heightened era of global integration. Theoretical studies examining the role of social capital in economic development suggest that understanding the broader context of social relationships within which the market operates is vital in understanding market behavior. Hence, this perspective presents a distinct approach by which to grasp how small business men and women in globalizing African economies socially position themselves to manage and thrive under market pressures on all spatial levels. Drawing from this literature, this investigation explores how the social structure — specifically, the diversity of relationships in the social networks –of local South African entrepreneurs contributes to the development of their small businesses. Employing the qualitative analytical methodology of grounded theory, data is generated via in-depth interviews of twenty-four entrepreneurs from the clothing manufacturing and service industries in Greater Johannesburg, South Africa. Empirical research in this regard is growing but is still limited. Hence, grounded theory- as other qualitative methodologies — captures the nuances and cultural interpretations vital to comprehending the social structure of the local economy. Distinct from other qualitative methodologies, however, grounded theory derives relationships between prevailing conceptual themes so as to form a testable framework for an emerging theory drawn directly from the data. The findings reveal, and form the first two hypotheses, that the structure and value of social network diversity vary across entrepreneurs of different economic sectors. To gain more empirical insight regarding network diversity variation, the study presents the analysis of particular variables — highlighted by the data and literature — in relation to entrepreneurs social networks. Clothing manufacturers emphasis of international trade as a threat forms the third hypothesis that their vulnerability to cheaper garment imports may be an explanatory factor for the structural and value differences of their networks diversity from those of service entrepreneurs. Recognizing that vulnerability to global imports does not fully account for the variation of network diversity among entrepreneurs within the same sector, however, continued analysis focused on the potential explanatory value of an entrepreneurs business phase and firm size. Findings supported the formation of the fourth and fifth hypotheses, which state that network diversity varies across entrepreneurs within different business phases in both sectors, and inconclusively across small firms of different sizes. The analysis notes that variation across firm size may be a function of business phase. At the end, the study lays out an emerging theoretical framework for the central concept of network diversity value, presenting the prevailing hypotheses and conceptual relationships to be tested in further studies.

This dissertation examines the experience of the tens of thousands of Chinese indentured laborers (colonos asiaticos or “coolies”) who went to Cuba and Peru as replacements for African slaves during the middle of the nineteenth century. Despite major sociopolitical differences (i.e., colonial slave society vs. independent republic without slavery), this comparative project reveals the common nature in the transition from slavery to free labor. Specifically, the indenture system, how the Chinese reacted to their situation, and how they influenced labor relations mirrored each other in the two societies. I contend that colonos asiaticos, while neither slaves nor free laborers, created a foundation for a shift from slavery to free labor. Elites in both places tried to fit the Chinese into competing projects of liberal “progress” and conservative efforts to stem this change, causing them to imagine these immigrant laborers in contradictory ways (i.e., free vs. slave, white vs. non-white, hard-working vs. lazy, cultured vs. morally corrupt). This ambiguity excused treating Asian laborers as if they were slaves, but it also justified treating them as free people. Moreover, Chinese acts of resistance slowly helped undermine this labor regime. Eventually, international pressure, which never would have reached such heights if the Chinese had remained passive, forced an end to the “coolie” trade and left these two societies with little option but to move even closer to free labor. That said, this work also considers the ways in which the differing socio-political contexts altered the Chinese experience. In particular, in contrast to Peru, Cuba’s status as a colonial slave society made it easier for the island’s elites to justify exploiting these workers and to protect themselves from mass rebellion. My dissertation places the histories of Cuba and Peru into a global perspective. It focuses on the transnational migration of the Chinese, on their social integration into their new Latin American host societies, as well as on the international reaction to the situation of immigrant laborers in Latin America.

My dissertation is a comparative case study of the developmental trajectories of eight major cities within the People’s Republic of China during the post-economic reform period of 1978 to the present: (1) Hong Kong, (2) Guangzhou, (3) Shenzhen, (4) Shanghai, (5) Beijing, (6) Tianjin, (7) Shenyang, and (8) Wuhan. Theoretically, I situate this study within the existing research on globalization and cities, most notably work on global cities or world cities, as well as research considering the impact of globalization on the nation-state. By documenting the economic and urban development of each city and analyzing data on various municipal-level indicators (e.g., population growth, foreign direct investment, political connectivity), I attempt to present the causal conditions explaining why some Chinese cities — Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong — have developed into global cities, whereas other cities — Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin — have adopted more secondary roles within the Chinese urban system. In addition, I aim to account for why more peripheral cities — Shenyang and Wuhan — have not experienced a comparable level of urban and economic growth. Particular consideration is given to how the development of each city during the post-reform period has been tied to the economic and political policy decisions of the Chinese central government, as well as the importance of political connections between municipal officials and state leadership for attaining global city status.

I begin this dissertation by first investigating the presence and segregation of affluent, middle income, and poor neighborhoods in all U.S. cities n＝23,030). Although household income inequality is steadily increasing from 1970 to 2000 due to both the increasing incomes of households at the top of the income distribution and declining incomes for households at the bottom of the distribution, this pattern is not mirrored at the neighborhood level. Overall, neighborhood income inequality increased from 1970 to 2000. Between 1970 and 1980, this inequality was driven by decreasing neighborhood incomes at the bottom of the neighborhood income distribution. From 1980 to 2000, however, neighborhood income inequality was driven by increases in neighborhood income at the top of the distribution. In order to see how neighborhood economic trends manifest spatially, I use Geographic Information Systems GIS) software to visually represent the location of affluent, middle income, and poor neighborhoods over time within cities. In New York, for instance, I find significant clustering of affluent neighborhoods at all years on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but this expands to the Upper West Side and to Lower Manhattan. The second substantive chapter describes patterns of neighborhood change, or mobility, by income from 1970 to 2000. I overlay affluent, middle income, and poor neighborhoods in one decade against their income characteristics in a later decade. These methods have more commonly been used to study intra- or intergenerational mobility, but I apply them here to investigate neighborhood mobility. I find that mobility rates among affluent and poor neighborhoods declined. Not only is household and neighborhood income inequality increasing, but poor neighborhoods are more likely to stay poor and affluent neighborhoods are more likely to remain affluent. Of neighborhoods that were poor in 1970, 38% remained chronically poor in 1980, 1990, and 2000. Of neighborhoods that were affluent in 1970, 48% remained chronically affluent. The greater proportion of chronically affluent neighborhoods suggests that their role in neighborhood inequality is vitally important to understanding social inequality. I use loglinear analysis to determine patterns of neighborhood mobility and stability rates within and between cities. Most neighborhoods remain affluent, middle income, or poor over time, but over a quarter of neighborhoods experience change. Most mobility occurs between adjacent income categories e.g. poor to middle income, or affluent to middle income)； however, there are cases of extreme neighborhood mobility, where neighborhoods change from affluent to poor or poor to affluent in one decade. Higher rates of change from affluent to poor are present among all U.S. city neighborhoods between 1970 and 1980. This pattern coincides with the process of suburbanization； affluent households exit the city, leaving behind poorer residents or creating a space for poor residents to move in. I find higher rates of poor neighborhoods that become affluent between 1980 and 1990. This pattern may reflect the process of gentrification, where higher income households re-enter the city, purchase housing in poor neighborhoods with the goal of rebuilding homes and community, thereby attracting other affluent households to the neighborhood. The third substantive chapter of this dissertation explains patterns of overall and affluent neighborhood stability and mobility for all U.S. cities. Neighborhood economic stability is the most common state. Neighborhood economic change occurs in two ways: households of different incomes move into or out of the neighborhood, or households that stay in place change their incomes. Mechanisms for neighborhood economic mobility may result from several different phenomena, including demographic changes in the neighborhood population e.g. racial composition, age composition, educational composition, family structure, population size or growth, immigration rates), changes in the industrial structure e.g. unemployment rate, occupational composition), housing structure e.g. % owner-occupied housing units, age of housing stock), and degree of income inequality between neighborhoods. I conduct regression analysis to primarily understand the relationship between levels of neighborhood income inequality within a city and its rate of neighborhood stability or mobility for all neighborhoods as well as affluent neighborhoods. Unlike earlier chapters, this analysis is aggregated to the city level to determine how characteristics of a city affect its neighborhood mobility patterns determined in the previous chapter. I find that the rise in neighborhood income inequality at the top of the income distribution is the strongest predictor of neighborhood economic stability. As the affluent diverge from remaining neighborhoods, rates of neighborhood stability within a city increase. My dissertation examines the important interplay between rich and poor in the creation and maintenance of social inequality and sheds light on an understudied dimension of social stratification.

This dissertation explores why and how personal networks relational social capital) can/cannot be transformed into community solidarity system social capital), using ethnographic data collected in two townships in north China. As generally in rural China, social life in both townships is deeply embedded in personal ties guanxi). However, transformation to community social capital happens in T Township, where organized protests of villagers pressure local governments to respond to their requests, but not in W Township, where collective action is largely unseen. My thesis is that differences in local mobilization of resistance can be explained by differences in the modes of political economy in each township. In W Township, economic development builds upon local rural entrepreneurship and a highly visible endogenous class society； while in T Township, urban capital and rural governments deprive villagers of local resources and compel them to become migrant workers. In the different emergent socioeconomic orders, village cadres, as major organizers of rural communities, and villagers reconfigure and redefine their roles, agendas, and contents of exchange in their everyday tie practices. Their strategic networking through personal ties shapes the capability of their communities to mobilize resources and organize collective action. Socialist governmental structure is well kept in W Township and the vertical tie with village cadres is the vital relationship for survival for common villagers. To exchange for favors, they support the village cadres with respect and restrain themselves from participating in organized resistance that would stain the career records of the cadres. In T Township, villagers, as well as village cadres, depend on the horizontal ties in their community to survive in the anarchist villages and in the cities where they now work. Through their personal networks, the cadres lead the villagers to transcend persisting boundaries in the rural society, and endeavor to collectively petition and protest to authorities against corrupted local officials and for social justice. Through the comparison, I argue that grassroots contexts and contents of network exchanges are crucial dimensions to explore for better understandings of the role of personal ties in collective activism, and the changing state-society dynamics in modern China.

This thesis examines the clothing of poor men in Philadelphia between 1780 and 1820, situated within the rich historiography of social and costume history. It examines two networks of clothing production and use, “slop shops” and the Philadelphia almshouse, and employs documentary evidence, visual depictions, and extant garments. “Slops” has long connoted coarse canvas garments associated with naval service. In fact, Philadelphia’s merchant sailors as well as other laborers bought a colorful variety of clothing in slop shops. These purchases allowed poor men to wear meaningful and expressive clothing. Slops-sellers managed networks of outworkers and employed sales tactics that other tailors eventually adopted, enabling the spread of ready-made menswear to higher social levels. Poor men also encountered ready-made clothing in the Philadelphia almshouse, where many of them sought shelter when they could not or would not provide for themselves. Resident workers produced shoes, textiles, and ready-made garments, and in this institution poor men wore varied and evocative clothing. This thesis contributes to a historiographical discourse about the origin and adoption of clothing styles among social groups. Whether they bought their clothing in a slop shop or received it in the almshouse, the “lower sort” engaged fashions distinct from those of the social elite, and exercised their agency to express themselves through clothing.

“Speaking Subalterns” examines the literatures of two marginalized groups, African Americans in the United States and Dalits in India. The project demonstrates how two disparate societies, USA and India, are constituted by comparable hegemonic socioeconomic-cultural and political structures of oppression that define and delimit the identities of the subalterns in the respective societies. The superstructures of race in USA and caste in India inform, deform, and complicate the identities of the marginalized along lines of gender, class, and family structure. Effectively, a type of domestic colonialism, exercised by the respective national elitists, silence and exploit the subaltern women and emasculate the men. This repression from above disrupts the respective family structures in the societies, traumatizes the children, and confuses the relationships between all the members of the families. While African American women, children, and men negotiate their national identities in USA, Dalits, the former Untouchables, attempt to realize their national identities guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. While successful resistance to oppression informs the literatures written by these historically marginalized peoples, thereby giving voice to the silenced subalterns, I argue that it is equally important to be attentive to the simultaneous silencing that has not ended. Moreover, we must be skeptical about the power seemingly achieved by the subalterns in articulating their claims to legitimate rights because re-presentation of subaltern resistance by the elite intellectuals and by subalterns themselves becomes a critical inquiry. Thus, while some subaltern women claim agency through representation, their narratives may not be exempt from hegemonic control. Others are thoroughly misrepresented by elitists. While some subaltern mothers undertake outlaw mothering by defying normative patriarchal motherhood, responsible representation can re-cover these tales which are silenced when these mothers succumb to their children and communitys disparagement. While some subaltern children may survive disastrous experiences, others may be traumatized into silence. Representation bears witness to these traumatic silences and the silencing processes. While historically emasculated subaltern men may vent and represent their rightful frustration and wrath against the oppressors, they may be simultaneously silencing their own doubly-oppressed women.

In 1968 the Johnson Administration transformed Fannie Mae, the federal agency responsible for supporting the nations secondary mortgage market, into a privately owned but federally supported company called a Government Sponsored Entity. The Administration also implemented a policy that promoted mortgage-backed securities MBS), a financial technology that would eventually revolutionize global finance. This dissertation investigates the origins of those Johnson Administration policies. Drawing from original archival research and the secondary literature on housing and credit in the U.S., I show that a long history of government officials acting like agents in U.S. housing and credit markets contributed to the rise of the U.S. securitization market. The dissertation first describes the deeply rooted historical forces that affected the 1968 mortgage finance reforms. These forces include: a set of contradictions in the field of housing that began in the revolutionary period； government officials tendency to use indirect policy tools, like federal credit aid programs, to manage housing and credit markets, and； since the 1930s, the use of increasingly complex debt instruments to manipulate the federal budget. Having outlined these forces, and discussed how they came to a head in the midst of the 1960s, I next investigate the mechanisms through which the Johnson Administration came to choose to spin-off Fannie Mae and promote the MBS market. I find that contentious budget politics were especially important in directing the policy. I conclude that in the 1960s these policies were adopted because i) they promised to help solve long-standing problems in the housing market, and ii) because they helped President Johnson manage a budget deficit already extended due to the combination of the Vietnam War and the Great Society programs. This dissertation joins a growing body of scholarship that challenges the notion that America has a state is weak state and laissez-faire economy. Building on this literature, I argue that i) federal credit programs are an important but often-overlooked point of federal intervention into the economy, and that ii) the structure of federal budget politics is one important reason why federal intervention in the economy often remains indirect and complex. Through this case study, I argue that a sprawling and fragmented political structure, combined with the use of indirect policy tools, are important reasons why U.S. government programs tend to be easily misrecognized or overlooked.

Recent studies of education in India indicate stark inequalities still persist in primary education between children of various backgrounds. Yet, landmark education policy changes in 1986 and passage in 1992 of two constitutional amendments were supposed to give locally-elected representatives and school personnel increased authority to forge partnerships supportive of educational change. Over fifteen years later, we know little about the relationship between these local village councils Gram Panchayats, or GPs) and their organizational partners and the relationship of these proposed partnerships to primary education and involvement in it. This study utilized social capital theory to examine these relationships and found that, while some GPs establish partnerships with a variety of different types of organizational partners, many establish few partnerships. When they do engage in education projects, GPs tend to get involved in non-capital intensive projects such as enrollment drives and monitoring student and teacher attendance or teaching quality. Amidst many organization-level relationships that were examined, GPs internal organizational bonding and organization-organization “linking” partnerships with well-endowed organizations were the only variables displaying a clearly consistent relationship to educational involvement. Only one individual characteristic—mean education—and one organizational characteristic—frequency of GP meetings—have a consistently positive relationship with educational involvement. And lastly, the effect of the gender and caste background of GP members and leaders is uneven at best and does not appear to be associated with GPs educational involvement. Data for the study came from responses to a structured survey of 720 elected representatives in 240 GPs in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Background and contextual information on the study location and respondents was collected through semi-structured interviews among government officials, policymakers, village and regional-level educational staff, and development practitioners. The results suggest policymakers and practitioners should: 1) use caution when making claims about, and plans based on, the relationship between demographic characteristics and educational involvement, 2) be more discerning when promoting different types of partnerships, 3) support and encourage initiatives to build the internal cohesion and efficacy of GPs, and 4) consider a range of new policy and programming-oriented supports for Village Education Committees and GPs.

This dissertation examines the impact of social networks on knowledge production and performance, with particular attention to the antecedents that shape how these networks evolve. A large body of work from multiple disciplines emphasizes the abnormal returns to both individuals and firms in superior social positions. In three essays, I not only explore how social positions arise, but also how networks evolve over time and shape performance outcomes. The first two essays delve into how relational structure shapes the fluid boundary between private and public sectors in the scientific knowledge economy. A third paper builds upon ecological theory to explore how individual and environmental factors act in concert to shape communication networks at a biopharmaceutical firm. Taken together, these essays give a greater understanding of the factors underlying network positions and may be of interest to theorists, empiricists, and managers alike.