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Papers by Daniel Starkman
Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2018
Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2018
Georgetown University: Program of Development Management & Policy, 2018
This thesis investigates the influence of business on the public policymaking process in the Unit... more This thesis investigates the influence of business on the public policymaking process in the United States. A framework is proposed for categorizing policymaking contexts and mechanisms of influence, synthesized from previous literature on structural versus institutional power, automatic versus instrumental influence, arenas of power, and on the opportunity structures pertaining to distinct varieties of capitalism. Much of the literature on business’ influence on policy performs analyses at the corporation level, resulting in the limited consideration of firms as formal-legal entities, as rational “black-box” actors, or as ensembles of resources. This thesis proposes an assemblage-theoretic approach to conceptualizing the firm and its position within political institutions and political-economic structures. It is argued that firms’ preferences and capacities for influence are properties emergent from the extrinsic relations among actors and resources within the firm, as well as from firms’ extrinsic relations with other actors in broader structural and institutional networks. This framework is demonstrated through an analysis of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), including an institutional and structural history of the program, a quantitative analysis of the program’s portfolio, and a qualitative analysis of two high-profile cases: Tesla and Solyndra. The qualitative analysis illustrates the instrumentalization of automatic pathways of influence, the transformation of transactional mechanisms into relational pathways, and the interaction of formal and informal pathways. The multivariate regression analyses show a significant positive relationship between lobbying and loan size, reinforcing the notion that relational pathways are instrumentalized effectively by firms at the stage of distribution. Political contributions were not found to be statistically significant, but were negatively associated with loan size, suggesting that the impact of contributions may be indirect through their transformation into relational pathways over time. It is proposed that additional emergent properties captured by the mapping of firm assemblages, such as mediated relational pathways, may be modeled using the framework developed and quantified using network analysis. It is argued that the conception of firms as assemblages comprising larger institutional and structural networks is a promising inroad to future study of business’ influence on policymaking, with broader implications for policy studies and political economy.
La posibilidad de contar con un piso mínimo de ingreso asegurado en situaciones de desempleo es u... more La posibilidad de contar con un piso mínimo de ingreso asegurado en situaciones de desempleo es un derecho establecido en el Convenio 102 de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) (de 1956) y aprobado recientemente en la Argentina (en sus artículos 19 al 24). Sin embargo, en la Argentina, la cobertura del Seguro por Desempleo (SpD) –dirigido a los trabajadores formales– es muy baja, lo cual hace necesario implementar un conjunto de políticas no contributivas que brinden cobertura a los trabajadores no registrados. Así, existe una importante deficiencia en el acceso al sistema de protección social para los trabajadores en situación de desempleo. Más aún, hay inequidades en el acceso, ya que las prestaciones y contraprestaciones requeridas por ambos tipos de política (contributivas y no contributivas) son muy heterogéneas.
Este documento intenta mostrar conceptualmente y comparativamente los diferentes tipos de políticas contra el desempleo. Por un lado, describe las políticas pasivas, que apuntan a contener las consecuencias de la pérdida de empleo sobre los ingresos de los trabajadores. Por el otro, desarrolla los diferentes tipos de políticas activas que buscan reducir y prevenir la desocupación, a través de iniciativas que se dirigen tanto a la oferta, a la demanda y a la interacción entre ambas. Además, pone énfasis en la vinculación entre unas y otras, y en la tendencia reciente de “activación de políticas pasivas”.
El documento recomienda que se estudia alternativas que mantengan el esquema actual de políticas, pero aumenten la importancia del SpD como instrumento de política contra el desempleo. En particular, debería analizarse la ampliación del monto de los beneficios, revisar los actuales montos máximos y mínimos, vinculándolos con un salario de referencia, por ejemplo el Salario Mínimo, Vital y Móvil (SMVM). De esta manera, el SpD se convertiría en un instrumento contracíclico y recuperaría su importancia como soporte del ingreso perdido. Esto a su vez redundaría en un aumento de la cobertura del sistema contributivo, puesto que limitaría la exclusión de quienes hoy deciden no cobrar el beneficio.
Esta reforma del SpD debería ir acompañada por un refuerzo de los programas no contributivos dirigidos a los desempleados provenientes del sector informal, de manera de incluir a toda la población desempleada, sin descuidar los esfuerzos por reducir la informalidad. De manera alternativa, se ubica el reconocimiento del papel limitado actual del SpD, analizando la posibilidad de canalizar los recursos del SpD hacia un sistema centrado en políticas no contributivas, reforzar así este sistema y potenciar su capacidad para enfrentar las situaciones de desempleo. Cualquiera de estas reformas implicaría trabajar sobre las principales dificultades que enfrenta el sistema actual y potenciar su impacto como estabilizador de los ingresos y de facilitador de reinserción laboral de los desocupados.
In developing countries, accumulated capital for use in the transformative (developmental) functi... more In developing countries, accumulated capital for use in the transformative (developmental) function of the state is largely derived from the agrarian sector. The ability to mobilize agrarian surplus for use in developmentalist policies is intimately tied to questions of state-agrarian-sector relations and agrarian reform. This paper seeks to examine this “transformative” function in Brazil and Taiwan, focusing on differences in economic statecraft and agrarian reform, thus hoping to partially explain the developmental divergence between the highly performing economies in East Asia (the HPAEs) and Latin America.
Widespread sentiment that the government had forsaken ‘Main Street’ to advance the interests of t... more Widespread sentiment that the government had forsaken ‘Main Street’ to advance the interests of the financial sector led to significant investigation into the nature of business-state relations with respect to TARP’s formation and implementation. This paper seeks to explore the possibility that the United States finance sector influenced the implementation of TARP. Using a theoretical framework drawn from the works of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Ben Schneider, and David Broockman, this paper analyzes quantitative research for the use of pathways of influence by the finance sector on the TARP legislation. This paper aims to evaluate the possibility that TARP’s implementation was influenced by the finance sector to achieve its preferred policy outcomes. This paper finds evidence that instrumental mechanisms such as political contributions, lobbying, and networking were all both incentivized by the opportunity structure of the US political system and intensively used by actors in the finance sector. Additional evidence suggests that structural power complemented and compounded instrumental mechanisms of influence, contextualizing their usage.
Teaching Documents by Daniel Starkman
Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2018
Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2018
Georgetown University: Program of Development Management & Policy, 2018
This thesis investigates the influence of business on the public policymaking process in the Unit... more This thesis investigates the influence of business on the public policymaking process in the United States. A framework is proposed for categorizing policymaking contexts and mechanisms of influence, synthesized from previous literature on structural versus institutional power, automatic versus instrumental influence, arenas of power, and on the opportunity structures pertaining to distinct varieties of capitalism. Much of the literature on business’ influence on policy performs analyses at the corporation level, resulting in the limited consideration of firms as formal-legal entities, as rational “black-box” actors, or as ensembles of resources. This thesis proposes an assemblage-theoretic approach to conceptualizing the firm and its position within political institutions and political-economic structures. It is argued that firms’ preferences and capacities for influence are properties emergent from the extrinsic relations among actors and resources within the firm, as well as from firms’ extrinsic relations with other actors in broader structural and institutional networks. This framework is demonstrated through an analysis of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), including an institutional and structural history of the program, a quantitative analysis of the program’s portfolio, and a qualitative analysis of two high-profile cases: Tesla and Solyndra. The qualitative analysis illustrates the instrumentalization of automatic pathways of influence, the transformation of transactional mechanisms into relational pathways, and the interaction of formal and informal pathways. The multivariate regression analyses show a significant positive relationship between lobbying and loan size, reinforcing the notion that relational pathways are instrumentalized effectively by firms at the stage of distribution. Political contributions were not found to be statistically significant, but were negatively associated with loan size, suggesting that the impact of contributions may be indirect through their transformation into relational pathways over time. It is proposed that additional emergent properties captured by the mapping of firm assemblages, such as mediated relational pathways, may be modeled using the framework developed and quantified using network analysis. It is argued that the conception of firms as assemblages comprising larger institutional and structural networks is a promising inroad to future study of business’ influence on policymaking, with broader implications for policy studies and political economy.
La posibilidad de contar con un piso mínimo de ingreso asegurado en situaciones de desempleo es u... more La posibilidad de contar con un piso mínimo de ingreso asegurado en situaciones de desempleo es un derecho establecido en el Convenio 102 de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) (de 1956) y aprobado recientemente en la Argentina (en sus artículos 19 al 24). Sin embargo, en la Argentina, la cobertura del Seguro por Desempleo (SpD) –dirigido a los trabajadores formales– es muy baja, lo cual hace necesario implementar un conjunto de políticas no contributivas que brinden cobertura a los trabajadores no registrados. Así, existe una importante deficiencia en el acceso al sistema de protección social para los trabajadores en situación de desempleo. Más aún, hay inequidades en el acceso, ya que las prestaciones y contraprestaciones requeridas por ambos tipos de política (contributivas y no contributivas) son muy heterogéneas.
Este documento intenta mostrar conceptualmente y comparativamente los diferentes tipos de políticas contra el desempleo. Por un lado, describe las políticas pasivas, que apuntan a contener las consecuencias de la pérdida de empleo sobre los ingresos de los trabajadores. Por el otro, desarrolla los diferentes tipos de políticas activas que buscan reducir y prevenir la desocupación, a través de iniciativas que se dirigen tanto a la oferta, a la demanda y a la interacción entre ambas. Además, pone énfasis en la vinculación entre unas y otras, y en la tendencia reciente de “activación de políticas pasivas”.
El documento recomienda que se estudia alternativas que mantengan el esquema actual de políticas, pero aumenten la importancia del SpD como instrumento de política contra el desempleo. En particular, debería analizarse la ampliación del monto de los beneficios, revisar los actuales montos máximos y mínimos, vinculándolos con un salario de referencia, por ejemplo el Salario Mínimo, Vital y Móvil (SMVM). De esta manera, el SpD se convertiría en un instrumento contracíclico y recuperaría su importancia como soporte del ingreso perdido. Esto a su vez redundaría en un aumento de la cobertura del sistema contributivo, puesto que limitaría la exclusión de quienes hoy deciden no cobrar el beneficio.
Esta reforma del SpD debería ir acompañada por un refuerzo de los programas no contributivos dirigidos a los desempleados provenientes del sector informal, de manera de incluir a toda la población desempleada, sin descuidar los esfuerzos por reducir la informalidad. De manera alternativa, se ubica el reconocimiento del papel limitado actual del SpD, analizando la posibilidad de canalizar los recursos del SpD hacia un sistema centrado en políticas no contributivas, reforzar así este sistema y potenciar su capacidad para enfrentar las situaciones de desempleo. Cualquiera de estas reformas implicaría trabajar sobre las principales dificultades que enfrenta el sistema actual y potenciar su impacto como estabilizador de los ingresos y de facilitador de reinserción laboral de los desocupados.
In developing countries, accumulated capital for use in the transformative (developmental) functi... more In developing countries, accumulated capital for use in the transformative (developmental) function of the state is largely derived from the agrarian sector. The ability to mobilize agrarian surplus for use in developmentalist policies is intimately tied to questions of state-agrarian-sector relations and agrarian reform. This paper seeks to examine this “transformative” function in Brazil and Taiwan, focusing on differences in economic statecraft and agrarian reform, thus hoping to partially explain the developmental divergence between the highly performing economies in East Asia (the HPAEs) and Latin America.
Widespread sentiment that the government had forsaken ‘Main Street’ to advance the interests of t... more Widespread sentiment that the government had forsaken ‘Main Street’ to advance the interests of the financial sector led to significant investigation into the nature of business-state relations with respect to TARP’s formation and implementation. This paper seeks to explore the possibility that the United States finance sector influenced the implementation of TARP. Using a theoretical framework drawn from the works of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Ben Schneider, and David Broockman, this paper analyzes quantitative research for the use of pathways of influence by the finance sector on the TARP legislation. This paper aims to evaluate the possibility that TARP’s implementation was influenced by the finance sector to achieve its preferred policy outcomes. This paper finds evidence that instrumental mechanisms such as political contributions, lobbying, and networking were all both incentivized by the opportunity structure of the US political system and intensively used by actors in the finance sector. Additional evidence suggests that structural power complemented and compounded instrumental mechanisms of influence, contextualizing their usage.