The Political Economy of Left-Wing Populism - social relations and the economic imaginary of Podemos

Populism has become a political catchphrase across the world, spanning across the entire political spectrum in various forms. In Spain, the left-wing populist party Podemos is the most significant case, adopting a post-marxist perspective less focused on the economy than orthodox marxism. In light of this, this thesis examines their main economic program through use of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, in order to investigate their understanding of the economy and its social relations. The theoretical framework used is a Marxist and Polanyian understanding of social relations, through the Cultural Political Economy approach by Bob Jessop & Ngai-Ling Sum, a framework dedicated to understanding the discursive dimension of political economy using a concept called the economic imaginary. The research questions are therefore formulated with an aim to understand Podemos’ economic imaginary, the social actors and relations within it, as well as how the economic program can be linked to Podemos’ populist project. In short, the economic imaginary found in the program is understood by the researcher as a National-Popular Keynesian Welfare State, with an attempt to conciliate the social relations in the economy while integrating citizens into society. Regarding the connection between the populist project and the economic imaginary, this is seen as a consequence of the right-ward shift of political and economic discourse.In recent years, politics in Europe have become more populist. Though there is a debate what populism actually is, it usually addresses and appeals to ”the people” as against an elite, whatever the people or the elite is thought to be. Spain is no different: since the financial crisis, the populist left-wing party Podemos has increased dramatically in size, using a radical tone in their speech to gather voters. Ideologically, the party is inspired by the ideas of Chantal Mouffe & Ernesto Laclau, who support ”radical democracy” and think that the way people talk can influence what people think about politics. Therefore, Podemos are not interested in the economy in the same way that other left-wing parties historically have been. With this in mind, this thesis investigates the economic program of Podemos, to figure out how they think that the economy works. It also analyses how people and their relationships in the economy are described, for example the relationship between workers and company owners, as left-wing parties traditionally view this as a relationship filled with conflict. Lastly, the thesis discusses the connection between this economic world view and the populism that Podemos use in their political speech. To do this, the thesis uses a method called Critical Discourse Analysis, which analyses the language and the themes in a text, and connects this to how society works. Regarding theory, the thesis uses a framework called Cultural Political Economy, which aims to explain this connection, together with a Marxist and Polanyian theory of social relationships. According to the researcher, the results show that Podemos think of the economy as a National-Popular Keynesian Welfare State. This means that ”the people” is every Spanish citizen, and Podemos want a stable economy that is able to provide for everybody, including the unemployed. At the same time, they distance themselves from traditional left-wing politics, in that the relationships in the economy are presented as mostly peaceful, and that everyone can work together and unite society. The researcher also thinks that these economic policies are close to traditional social democracy, and in line with Podemos’ populist politics. This is because what is considered ”sound” economics, but also left-wing economics, has shifted to the right during the last decades

Prekariatet som klass?

This is a bachelor thesis using qualitative methods to investigate people in insecure socio- economic situations. The purpose of this thesis is to, in an explorative way, investigate, both theoretically and empirically, what people in insecure socio-economic situations have in common, in what ways they differ from each other, and where they can be placed in a class structure. For this purpose, 6 people in insecure socio-economic situations have been interviewed and analysed using Marxist class theory and Guy Standing’s theories about the precariat. Through this, the thesis tries to answer the following research question: can socio-economically insecure groups constitute a class through their daily life experiences, and if so how, and how does this form a possible class consciousness? Through the research question the thesis has come to deal with what these people have in common in their daily life, and what differentiates them, as well as an investigation of a possible class consciousness and the political statements that the respondents have given. As the investigation itself is explorative no far-reaching conclusions is intended to be drawn from it, rather it presents an option to explore the field and opens up new questions and investigations. This regards primarily class consciousness and how it is established, as it constitutes a complex relation between the material situation and establishing an identity. Concerning the use of different concepts of class, the marxist version is found more useful than the theories concerning the precariat, as marxist theories combines tools for micro-level analysis of class as well as a broader critique of the system itself

What's cracking? A review and analysis of deep learning methods for structural crack segmentation, detection and quantification

Surface cracks are a very common indicator of potential structural faults. Their early detection and monitoring is an important factor in structural health monitoring. Left untreated, they can grow in size over time and require expensive repairs or maintenance. With recent advances in computer vision and deep learning algorithms, the automatic detection and segmentation of cracks for this monitoring process have become a major topic of interest. This review aims to give researchers an overview of the published work within the field of crack analysis algorithms that make use of deep learning. It outlines the various tasks that are solved through applying computer vision algorithms to surface cracks in a structural health monitoring setting and also provides in-depth reviews of recent fully, semi and unsupervised approaches that perform crack classification, detection, segmentation and quantification. Additionally, this review also highlights popular datasets used for cracks and the metrics that are used to evaluate the performance of those algorithms. Finally, potential research gaps are outlined and further research directions are provided

Early Embryonic Gene Expression Profiling of Zebrafish Prion Protein (Prp2) Morphants

Background: The Prion protein (PRNP/Prp) plays a crucial role in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), scrapie and mad cow disease. Notwithstanding the importance in human and animal disease, fundamental aspects of PRNP/Prp function and transmission remains unaccounted for. Methodology/Principal Findings: The zebrafish (Danio rerio) genome contains three Prp encoding genes assigned prp1, prp2 and prp3. Currently, the second paralogue is believed to be the most similar to the mammalian PRNP gene in structure and function. Functional studies of the PRNP gene ortholog was addressed by prp2 morpholino (MO) knockdown experiments. Investigation of Prp2 depleted embryos revealed high mortality and apoptosis at 24 hours post fertilization (hpf) as well as impaired brain and neuronal development. In order to elucidate the underlying mechanisms, a genomewide transcriptome analysis was carried out in viable 24 hpf morphants. The resulting changes in gene expression profiles revealed 249 differently expressed genes linked to biological processes like cell death, neurogenesis and embryonic development. Conclusions/Significance: The current study contributes to the understanding of basic Prp functions and demonstrates that the zebrafish is an excellent model to address the role of Prp in vertebrates. The gene knockdown of prp2 indicates an essential biological function for the zebrafish ortholog with a morphant phenotype that suggests a neurodegenerativ

Charge Fluctuations in the Single Electron Box

Quantum fluctuations of the charge in the single electron box are investigated. Based on a diagrammatic expansion we calculate the average island charge number and the effective charging energy in third order in the tunneling conductance. Near the degeneracy point where the energy of two charge states coincides, the perturbative approach fails, and we explicitly resum the leading logarithmic divergencies to all orders. The predictions for zero temperature are compared with Monte Carlo data and with recent renormalization group results. While good agreement between the third order result and numerical data justifies the perturbative approach in most of the parameter regime relevant experimentally, near the degeneracy point and at zero temperature the resummation is shown to be insufficient to describe strong tunneling effects quantitatively. We also determine the charge noise spectrum employing a projection operator technique. Former perturbative and semiclassical results are extended by the approach.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figure

Non-equlibrium effects in transport through quantum dots

The role of non-equilibrium effects in the conductance through quantum dots is investigated. Associated with single-electron tunneling are shake-up processes and the formation of excitonic-like resonances. They change qualitatively the low temperature properties of the system. We analyze by quantum Monte Carlo methods the renormalization of the effective capacitance and the gate-voltage dependent conductance. Experimental relevance is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 postscript figure

Symmetry-breaking supercollisions in Landau-quantized graphene

Recent pump-probe experiments performed on graphene in a perpendicular magnetic field have revealed carrier relaxation times ranging from picoseconds to nanoseconds depending on the quality of the sample. To explain this surprising behavior, we propose a novel symmetry-breaking defect-assisted relaxation channel. This enables scattering of electrons with single out-of-plane phonons, which drastically accelerate the carrier scattering time in low-quality samples. The gained insights provide a strategy for tuning the carrier relaxation time in graphene and related materials by orders of magnitude

Field-induced compensation of magnetic exchange as the origin of superconductivity above \texorpdfstring{40\,T}{40~T} in \texorpdfstring{\UTe}{UTe2}

The potential spin-triplet heavy-fermion superconductor \UTe exhibits signatures of multiple distinct superconducting phases. For field aligned along the $b$ axis, a metamagnetic transition occurs at $\mu_0$\Hm$\approx35\,$T. It is associated with magnetic fluctuations that may be beneficial for the field-enhanced superconductivity surviving up to \Hm. Once the field is tilted away from the $b$ towards the $c$ axis, a reentrant superconducting phase emerges just above \Hm. In order to better understand this remarkably field-resistant superconducting phase, we conducted magnetic-torque and magnetotransport measurements in pulsed magnetic fields. We determine the record-breaking upper critical field of $\mu_0$\Hc$\approx 73\,$T and its evolution with angle. Furthermore, the normal-state Hall effect experiences a drastic suppression indicative of a reduced band polarization above \Hm in the angular range around $30^\circ$ caused by a partial compensation between the applied field and an exchange field. This promotes the Jaccarino-Peter effect as a possible mechanism for the reentrant superconductivity above \Hm.Comment: Main text: 27 pages, 4 figure, supplement: 10 pages, 5 figure