Democracy and Economic Development: a Fuzzy Classification Approach

The aim of this work is to (1) analyse whether countries differ on political indicators (democracy, rule of law, government effectiveness and corruption) and (2) study whether countries with different political profiles are associated with different levels of economic, human development and gender-related development indicators. Using a fuzzy classification approach (fuzzy k-means algorithm), we propose a typology of 124 countries based on 10 political variables. Six segments are identified; these political groups implicate the access to different levels of economic and human development. In this study evidence of a positive but not perfect relationship between democracy and economic and human development is observed, thus presenting new insights for the understanding of the heterogeneity of behaviors relatively to political indicators.Democracy, Economic Development, Fuzzy k-means

Centralization and Decentralization of Public Policy in a Complex Framework

The public economic literature of the past century is characterized by a traditional paradigm that ascribes little attention to the spatial dimension. However, contemporary globalization requires that researchers and economists expand their perspectives to consider space conceptualization. What is required in the 21st century is a richer and more realistic framework that broadens existing concepts of socio-economic analysis while overcoming narrow national borders. Although national governments will remain prominent performers in the global market, regional and local governments cannot be ignored because citizens worldwide are exerting greater self-determination in influencing governmental decisions. This paper is focused on the opportunity to analyze the governance of decentralization by the new optimizing procedures provided by complex system theory. The first section of the paper explores the positive and normative issues related to centralization and decentralization in a globalized framework as well as the increased interdependence in power sharing among different jurisdictional level. In the second section, Kauffman’s (1993) contributions are examined as a means of determining if the fitness landscape allows combining the institutional evolution. Finally, this paper concludes highlighting that complex system theory is one of the possible tools useful to redesign the map of institutional sharing power in an era of globalization, considering that it allows catching Pareto improving in the level of welfare

The political carousel: elite power-sharing, political instability and the allocation of senior government posts in Africa

This research project examines how various political events and factors influence the composition of senior government elites in a range of African states. Using a newly created dataset of African cabinet ministers, this thesis creates a number of metrics to measure elite volatility and ethnic, regional and political representation. These metrics are used to assess leader and regime strategies of elite power-sharing. It then employs a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how factors such as ethnic demography, regime strength, economic performance, opposition cohesion and popular unrest influence these metrics. Through this process the thesis aims to demonstrate how the distribution of political power within a state can be estimated by allocation and reshuffling of cabinet ministers. This research project contributes a number of key findings. Firstly, most regimes represent the majority relevant subnational groups within the senior government, but that representation is unbalanced with certain groups being overrepresented and others underrepresented. Secondly, these imbalances and variation in which groups are favoured provide information on the distribution of political power. Thirdly, that different political environments lend themselves to different compositions in the senior government and different strategies of elite power-sharing. In the same vein, individual political events which alter the balance of power are accompanied with corresponding changes in senior government which reflect these shifts in the political hierarchy. These findings contribute to the debates on the determinants of African political power distributions, elite designations and processes, formal vs informal institutions and the political survival literature. A broad benefit of this work is to demonstrate the variance in power sharing arrangements across the African continent. Furthermore, this project demonstrates that external events change leader and elite calculations, which in turn changes strategies of power sharing

텍스트마이닝(Text Mining)기법을 응용한 섬지역 개발 방법 연구: 인도네시아 발리섬과 롬복섬을 대상으로

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 국제대학원 국제학과(국제지역학전공), 2023. 2. 은기수.Islands are prime destinations for attracting international travelers motivated to experience an explorative, exotic island lifestyle. People's preference for island destinations has greatly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic over busy and crowded landmarks or tourist attractions in the center of big cities. Not all islands, however, attract tourists as most islands inherently share similar natural endowments including beaches and marine ecosystems. Due to wide spectrum of maturity in service and amenities in tourism industry of each island, there is ceaseless competition even between islands with similar geographic conditions. This research takes focuses on investigating key determinants that account for prominent differences in size, maturity of tourism sectors and popularity of Bali and Lombok by in-depth analysis on differences in socio-religious context of two regions. Adopting the John Stuart Mills Method of Difference as a framework, the study interpreted the social and cultural fabric of the target islands, borrowing local terminology and values (Agama, Adat, Dinas) on applying the anthropology-derived emic technique. The Two-Way Methodology was employed in this study for in-depth analysis on sociocultural context of target islands. The first, referred to "Historical Analysis," which categorizes and links historical events affected social structures of target destinations; the second, known as "Empirical Analysis," uses text mining the visitors review big-data sets to examine whether the interpreted dynamics of social structures also influences at real-time tourism sites. This analysis led the researcher to find out the dynamics of religion (agama) and norms (adat/dinas) as a determinant that led the socio-religious structure of two islands in different paths. In conclusion, this research proves that understanding of the key elements for determining social structure by adopting the methodology using Historical Analysis based on the concept of Agama, Adat, Dinas and using Empirical Analysis for Big-data in tourism sector can suggest meaningful strategic implications for researching and developing areas of unique religious, social structure and cultural diversity, particularly in island destinations.본연구의목적은 사회・종교적 고유성(Originality)을 본질적 속성으로 하는 섬 지역에 있어 관광 산업을 중심으로 한 실효적인 지역개발 접근법을 제시하는 데 있다. 유사한 지리조건 및 역사적 배경을 갖고 있으나, 관광산업의 성숙도와 규모면에서 차이를 보이고 있는 인도네시아 발리섬과 롬복섬의 사회・종교적 맥락의 차이를 심층 분석함으로써, 이에 관한 분석 방법론이 섬 지역 개발 정책 수립 및 실행과정에 유용하게 쓰일 수 있게 함을 목표로 한다. 발리섬과 롬복섬의 관광산업이 차이를 보이는 근본 원인을 규명하기 위해 John Stuart Mill의 차이법(Method of Difference)과 인류학의 문화비교 방법론인 에믹(emic) 접근법에 기초하여, 7세기 이후 현재까지 인도네시아에서 발생한 중요한 역사적 사건들에 대한 발리와 롬복의대응 과정에서 각각 다르게 형성된 종교・사회・문화적 맥락을 분석 및 해석하고, 그 차이의 실제성을 빅데이터 텍스트마이닝 기법을 통해 검증하고자 하였다. 역사적 사실 및 기록 연구를 통해 발리와 롬복의 관광산업 발전양상 차이의 주요 원인은 두 섬 내부에서 일어난 agama와 adat의 정의 및 관계설정의 차이로 인해 다르게 형성된 사회규범 및 관계망의 개방성의 차이이며, 이 차이가 투자 및 외부인 수용도에 영향을 미쳤음을 밝혔다. 이어 이 차이의 실제성을 세계 최대 여행정보사이트인 트립어드바이저에 방문자들이 남긴 동선정보와 경험에 대한 평가가 담긴 빅데이터의 핵심단어 사용빈도 및 시각화, 동시출현단어 분석, 대응일치 분석 결과 또한 이러한 차이를 뒷받침하고 있음을 입증하였다. 이상의 분석 및 고찰 결과는 고립된 지리적 특성에 따라 고유의 종교・사회・문화적 맥락화를 본질적 속성으로 하는 다양한 섬 지역 연구에 적용할 수 있으며, 특히 본 논문에서 주요 개념으로 다룬 agama, adat, dinas 개념을 해당지역의 사회구조의 형태와 구조의 결정요소를 파악하는데 중요한 변수로 고려하는 경우 보다 효과적이고 유의미한 지역개발 및 관광산업 정책을 수립할 수 있을 것으로 기대한다.I. Introduction 1 1. Purpose of the Study 1 2. Flow of the Study 2 II. Backgrounds 3 1. Similarities Between Bali and Lombok 3 1-1. Geography 4 1-2. Lifestyle 5 1-3. Cultural Backgrounds 5 2. Different Scales of Tourism Sector of Two Islands 6 1-1. Tourism as a Backbone Industry and Economic Drive in Indonesia 7 1-2. Steady and Strong Tourism Development in Bali 11 1-3. Fluctuating and Complicated Tourism Development in Lombok 13 III. Methodologies and Theories 16 1. Research design 16 2. Methodologies 16 IV. Analysis and Interpretations 18 1. Historical Interpretations 18 1-1. Conceptual Frames: Agama, Adat, Dinas, Dharma 18 1-2. Bali and Its Hindu(/Buddhist) Dharma and Adat in Lombok 21 1-3. Bali as Tourist Destination and Negotiation of Its Socio-religious Identity 32 1-4. Agama and Adat in Bali and Lombok 35 1-5. Negotiation of Identity and Tourism Sector 38 2. Empirical Interpretations 46 2-1. Review of Promotional Material in Bali and Lombok Tourism 46 2-2. Review of Actual Experience of Visitors to Bali and Lombok by Text-mining 55 2-2-1. Data Collection 2-2-2. Data Processing 2-2-3. Data Analysis 2-2-4. Descriptive Statistics 2-2-5. Word co-occurrence network analysis 2-2-6. Correspondence Analysis V. Conclusions and Recommendations 71 Bibliography 80 Abstract in Korean 93석

Making and shaping things in creative economies

Abstract book for symposium “Making and shaping things in creative economies. From history to present day” organised by Vilnius University, 28-30 November 2019. This symposium studies the ways design is organised and managed with different political processes and policies, both in past and present. Instead of focusing solely on the content of policies, politics and management, it attempts to create a wider debate within the framework of culture, creativity and economy. The event looks at the impact that the specific policies and individuals, organisations or institutions behind them have on existing design culture. In addition to the act of designing, the possible subjects include policies shaping all stages in the life cycle of an object, for example promotion, consumption, collecting objects or recycling them, as well as positioning design in a wider political context. Within the international symposium “Making and shaping things in creative economies” an event is dedicated to the study of art and culture within local creative economies and industries in Lithuania and nearby. The aim is to research the ways art is managed and organised with different strategies, processes and policies. Instead of focusing solely on the content of policies, politics and management, it creates a wider debate within the framework of culture, creativity and economy

Decolonizing American Democracy and the Problem of Gerrymandering: Implications of Border Designs from a Communication Ethics Perspective

This project attempts to understand the powerful force of political borders from a historical and communicative perspective. Of particular importance to this research is the role that political borders play in shaping individuals’ relationship to structures and practices of democracy. Following insights of decolonial and communication ethics scholars, this work understands the importance of ethically framing deliberations surrounding physical, metaphorical, and categorical political borders. Five chapters make up this work in the culmination of analyzing political gerrymandering as a form of democratic competition grounded in the rhetoric of colonialism. Tracing the colonial history of borders throughout American democracy provides this project the ground to discuss the evolution of challenges that gerrymandering has presented for democratic ethics. The aim of this research is to call attention to the hidden competitive forces that political borders have justified throughout the vast history of colonialism in America. The project does not conclude by calling for a deconstruction of borders, but rather a stronger understanding of the responsibilities that borders create in political society. Through decolonial border thinking and communication ethics, this work can show the necessary frameworks that democracy requires and to shine a light on how the manipulation of borders can corrupt the democratic ethics of public discourse

The Political Carousel

"This research project examines how various political events and factors influence the composition of senior government elites in a range of African states. Using a newly created dataset of African cabinet ministers, this thesis creates a number of metrics to measure elite volatility and ethnic, regional and political representation. These metrics are used to assess leader and regime strategies of elite power-sharing. It then employs a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how factors such as ethnic demography, regime strength, economic performance, opposition cohesion and popular unrest influence these metrics. Through this process the thesis aims to demonstrate how the distribution of political power within a state can be estimated by allocation and reshuffling of cabinet ministers. This research project contributes a number of key findings. Firstly, most regimes represent the majority relevant subnational groups within the senior government, but that representation is unbalanced with certain groups being overrepresented and others underrepresented. Secondly, these imbalances and variation in which groups are favoured provide information on the distribution of political power. Thirdly, that different political environments lend themselves to different compositions in the senior government and different strategies of elite power-sharing. In the same vein, individual political events which alter the balance of power are accompanied with corresponding changes in senior government which reflect these shifts in the political hierarchy. These findings contribute to the debates on the determinants of African political power distributions, elite designations and processes, formal vs informal institutions and the political survival literature. A broad benefit of this work is to demonstrate the variance in power sharing arrangements across the African continent. Furthermore, this project demonstrates that external events change leader and elite calculations, which in turn changes strategies of power sharing.

Digital Marketing and the Culture Industry: The Ethics of Big Data

Instead of the steady march of the one percent growth in ecommerce as compared to total retail revenues in the last decade (to comprise about nine percent of the industry at the close of 2019), we have witnessed leaps now to over twenty percent in just the last year. Scott Galloway marks the pandemic as an accelerant not just of digital marketing posting a year of growth for each month of quarantine but as an accelerant of each major GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple) firm from market dominance to total dominance (Galloway 2020). Viewing these trends from the standpoint of critical marketing requires revisiting first-generation critical theorist reflections on the American dominance of the global culture industry. Insofar as GAFA digital marketing practices highlight their transition from mere neutral platforms to shapers, creators, and drivers of cultural content, we need to complement marketing’s praiseworthy achievements in statistical modeling (like SEM) with a sufficiently critical and theoretical contextualization. In this sense, while my investigation of big data will certainly countenance and explore its statistical (as algorithmic) innovations, what I capitalize as Big Data connotes the manners in which these large reserves of behavioral exhaust shape culture—domestic and global, home and workplace, private and public. The focus on ethics in each of these three articles follows not just moral norms, social practices, and associated virtues (or vices), but also the important ethical domains of compliance, basic rights, and juridical precedent. In the first article, I focus most exclusively on the manners in which GAFA algorithmic personalization tends to employ the alluring promise of individual tailoring of service convenience at the social costs of echo chambers, filter bubbles, and endemic political polarization. In the second article, I seek to devise a data theory of value as the wider context for my proposal to advance a new marketing mix. My tentative argument is that the classical subject as constructed by these platform domains has now juxtaposed the consumer and firm relationship. The true value creators of the workforce of the digital marketplace are its users as prosumers: an odd mixture of consumer, producer, and product. While the production era took nature as the collateral damage to its claims upon mining limited raw materials, the onset of a consumption driven economy harvests psychic and behavioral data as its new unlimited raw material with its own trails of collateral damage that constitute the birth of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019). In the third article, I turn to systemic racism in American sport with the focus on the performative rituals sanctioned, censored, and sold by the NFL as its foremost culture industry. In this last article, I also seek to develop a revamped epistemology for critical marketing that places a new primacy on the voices and experiences of those most systemically marginalized as the best lens from which to advance theories and practices that can disclose forms of latent domination often hidden behind otherwise an uncritical acceptance of the NFL culture industry as fundamentally apolitical leisurely entertainment

Seditious Spaces

The title ‘Seditious Spaces’ is derived from one aspect of Britain’s colonial legacy in Malaysia (formerly Malaya): the Sedition Act 1948. While colonial rule may seem like it was a long time ago, Malaysia has only been independent for sixty-one years, after 446 years of colonial rule. The things that we take for granted today, such as democracy and all the rights it implies, are some of the more ironic legacies of colonialism that some societies, such as Malaysia, have had to figure out after centuries of subjugation. While not suggesting that post-colonial regimes should not be held accountable for their actions, it is ironic to see a BBC commentator grilling the leader of a Commonwealth state about repressive laws and regulations inherited from the colonial era. (Even the term ‘Commonwealth’ is itself ironic, implying shared wealth, in reality it commonly meant a colonised country was contributing to the wealth of the metropolitan centre). This research sought to understand how the trajectory of urban development, which is shaped by the colonial legacy, has produced the contemporary geography of contention in Malaysia. Given that public space is shaped by the colonial legacy, how does it facilitate or hinder street protests as a function of democracy, which is also a vestige of colonialism? To do this, rather than going into a long discussion about notions of public sphere and public space, much of which originated from Western traditions, I used postcoloniality as a lens for the topic1. By taking the concepts as a given, the postcolonial gaze allowed me to contextualise particular Malaysian conditions. In this thesis I argued that the postcolonial narrative (democracy, modernisation, development) is ambivalent precisely because the colonial narrative itself is ambivalent; there was no real break between colonisation and the present condition. I examined three aspects in particular. Firstly, colonial architecture as a subversive ‘third space’, where independence amplified the subversive quality of colonial architecture because of the power vacuum left after the colonisers had left. Secondly, postcolonial ‘amnesia’, where certain aspects of history were conveniently forgotten or others selectively remembered in the production of space to build a hegemonic vision of society. Finally, I looked at postcolonial mimicry, where the post-colonial society imitated either the former colonial master or some other references that fit within its narrative. These notions were mapped onto public space which not only provided the backdrop for dissent but also shaped its form and practices. Protest provided a direct line for the interrogation of just how democratic postcolonial public space actually is. The mobilisations, negotiations, and potential conflicts that arise from the moment a street protest is announced reveal a lot about the politics of space as much as the event itself. Public space comprises material and discursive spaces and, at the time of writing, included social media which has become part of the infrastructure of protest. The empirical part of this research came from the Bersih 4 protest in Kuala Lumpur, which took place from 29-30 August 2015. To ground the somewhat abstract postcolonial discussion, methods (outlined below) were used to collect and analyse data. Firstly, to understand the logic behind the control and surveillance of public space I reviewed literature on how architecture and public space are produced and governed in Malaysia. Secondly, I observed protest in both digital and material public space, which means I harvested social-media data about the protest but also observed street protests in Kuala Lumpur. This informed me how protest produces space within which protesters could foster a collective identity, something that is necessary for the continuity of the protest. I then conducted a thematic analysis on a large number of tweets collected during the protest to understand how information about their places were communicated. Other protests that have taken place in Kuala Lumpur since 1998, when new media started playing a role, were also mapped; this was crucial for the understanding of the spatial patterns of the protests. By tracing the production of architecture in Malaysia we can see how the nation-building project was an ambivalent one, evidenced by how the state mapped their aspirations onto the built environment. Postcolonial amnesia is exhibited in how the Malay-Muslim identity is amplified in architecture while other identities were suppressed and only utilised when it seemed productive. Mimicry, on the other hand, can be seen in how certain architecture is created based on an imagined past, and how visions of modernity fluctuate between Occidental and Orientalist visual cues. Malaysian public space is not only a colonial legacy in terms of its material infrastructure and regulations, it also carries traces of colonial practice. Here, mimicry was manifested in how society imitated the erstwhile colonial masters in seeking to avoid the Other (due to the perception that public space is dangerous and uncomfortable, and showing that segregation had moved from one defined by ethnicity to one defined by class). The lack of a clear break between the colonial and the Neoliberal can also be seen in how public space is governed. Undesirable activity was always framed according to its potential for disrupting economic activity, indicating that public space was perceived as being useful only for production and consumption, not for the performance of citizenship. An urban-planning assessment of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (the seat of the postcolonial government) was carried out to see which place could better support protest. Accessibility, land-use patterns, and urban form were all aspects of the city that were decided upon at the urban-planning level and throught to influence the probability of protest taking place. This indicates that a city can be designed to support or hinder the performance of democracy. I found that Kuala Lumpur, founded during the colonial era, was actually more supportive of protest activities than Putrajaya, a city purpose built by the newly independent democratic regime. Analysis based on data collected around Bersih 4 was organised into four themes. I first examined how protest produces space. I did this by tracing how the collective identity, already formed by previous Bersih protests, was cultivated on social media in order to mobilise protesters to take to the streets. The act of converging in the same space and performing these spatial choreographies (marching, knowledge-sharing, occupation) further enhanced the collective identity. Images and descriptions of what took place on the streets then travelled through social media which in turn propelled events in the public space. While protest is shaped by the materiality of the urban environment, protest also produces space. Secondly, a reading of the space revealed the interplay between symbolic places and the spaces of everyday life. Protests are shaped by the existing materiality of space, which the authorities could further control by putting up extra measures. Due to this, Bersih 4 ended up occupying the intersection between symbolic and institutional places and spaces of everyday life. The polite restraint shown by Bersih 4 (in not entering Dataran Merdeka – which was barred to them) served to amplify the distance between the state and the people, further magnified by the fact that the protest coincided with Independence Day (31 August). The junction that Bersih occupied was teeming with people throughout the occupation but Dataran Merdeka was left empty and silent on the eve of the Independence Day commemoration. On the other hand, a thematic analysis of tweets revealed that most of those that mentioned geographical places were inflammatory in nature, in the sense that they were urging people to join the protest. Therefore, while the state could construct the symbolism of the space, it does not mean that the space is viewed in a similar way by the people, which means, in turn, that it can be rewritten. This is one way in which the subversiveness of colonial architecture was manifested. Thirdly, I found that the control of digital and material space was symmetrical. This can be seen in three ways: One, how regulations of both spaces can be used to suppress dissent; Two, how access to space can be blocked, either by blocking certain websites or platforms, or by limiting the access to the material public space; and Three, bottom‑up disruptions – while the Red Shirts disrupted Bersih’s performativity in the material public space, cybertroopers were disrupting protest exchanges on Twitter. Finally, the digital and spatial divide between Bersih and its opponents. The digital divide was not defined by degrees of expertise, but, rather, it revealed a differing logic of operation based on norms shaped by what was available to these different parties. Geographically, it revealed the difference between experience of organising protests for a collective cause versus a lack of experience (compounded by racist motivations). What this indicated was that the cleavage does not only run along communal lines, is also political. The research showed how the production of the Malaysian built environment is ambivalent, as is evidenced by the traces of amnesia and mimicry found in the narrative, where identities are grafted onto projections of modernity. Putrajaya shows that there is a disconnect between what the regime claims itself to be, a democracy, and the city it builds. What Putrajaya seems to demonstrate (ironically, as the seat of a democratic government) is how urban planning can be used to design a city so that it does not support the performance of democracy. It is also ironic how Kuala Lumpur, a city founded during the colonial period, is now more accommodating to street protest, cementing its position as a subversive third space. The disconnect between the ideology of the regime and the kind of space it produces indicates a potential for architects and urban planners to be subversive by designing public space to be more democratic, regardless of a regime’s ideology. Kuala Lumpur’s mixed land-use patterns, accessible by multi-modal transportation and a tight urban form which gives the city a more walkable scale, indicates that the city is a place of everyday life since it supports a variety of functions and activities within easy reach of the populace. Since protests also seem to flourish in public spaces like these, where everyday life is lived, it further cements the role of protest as a part of public life. The research also indicated the necessity of having material public space for the performance of democracy, thereby debunking the myth that digital space has somehow superseded public space. Just as the assumption that the Internet would result in the death of distance (ease of communication has, ironically, led to global cities becoming ever more important as nodes in global networks), this research shows how the Internet has the potential to expand the public sphere, and is actually instrumental in getting people to physically go to public spaces. Given how the protesters were communicating about place during Bersih 4, it shows how contestation of meaning does not have to be direct clash but that digital space could provide an arena even when material public space is off limits. The way in which Bersih 4 materialised itself in Kuala Lumpur also shows that restraint on the part of the protesters could also be a productive protest strategy, since it can bridge the distance between the state and its citizens via a strategic reading (and occupation of) space. Since protest is a performance, in the sense that it is a way of communicating displeasure, the space it uses should not only be seen as something to use or overcome, but can also be utilised more actively. Bersih 4, through its occupation of an important street junction, showed how it could challenge the symbolism embedded within Dataran by amplifying it. This research also shows how access to public space is crucial for the performance of democracy, and how public space can actually be designed to be more democratic, regardless of the ideology of the regime. Democracy has a spatial quality, and design can play a role in fomenting a more democratic urban environment

Situating Data

Taking up the challenges of the datafication of culture, as well as of the scholarship of cultural inquiry itself, this collection contributes to the critical debate about data and algorithms. How can we understand the quality and significance of current socio-technical transformations that result from datafication and algorithmization? How can we explore the changing conditions and contours for living within such new and changing frameworks? How can, or should we, think and act within, but also in response to these conditions? This collection brings together various perspectives on the datafication and algorithmization of culture from debates and disciplines within the field of cultural inquiry, specifically (new) media studies, game studies, urban studies, screen studies, and gender and postcolonial studies. It proposes conceptual and methodological directions for exploring where, when, and how data and algorithms (re)shape cultural practices, create (in)justice, and (co)produce knowledge