Political Economy



G16 - Methodological Debates and Frontiers in Political Economy

Date: Jun 14 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 365

Chair/Président/Présidente : A.T. Kingsmith (OCAD University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : A.T. Kingsmith (OCAD University)

Shelling out in Solidarity: Assessing the Impact of Labour Experience on Support for Enhancement of Labour Protections in International Trade: John Hicks (McGill University)
Abstract: Solidarity with foreign labour is conventionally viewed as restricted to the well-off. Because globalization has heightened tradeoffs between productive conditions and prices, research in consumer politics suggests that supporting conditions of foreign workers is restricted to those capable of bearing the cost of price increases (Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2015). Conversely, economically disadvantaged voters disregard foreign workers’ conditions in order to prioritize their own access to cheap goods. I contest the assumption that economically disadvantaged groups are predisposed to lower support for foreign labor standards by proposing a sociotropic model that accounts for surrounding labour conditions. I argue voters’ own experience with unsuitable labour conditions creates solidarity with foreign workers facing similar circumstances. Such identification with foreign populations can potentially overcome the limitative effect of poverty – itself correlated with poor labour conditions – on support for foreign labour enhancement. I assess this relationship using data from Eurobarometer special editions (2010, 2019) that gauge respondent’s support for the EU lobbying trade partners to enhance labour standards – even at the cost of domestic prices – and multiple EWCS (European Working Conditions Surveys) waves, which offer measures of labour conditions including safety hazards, overwork rates, compensation fairness, etc. I pair these datasets via geocoding at the NUTS-2 level to establish aggregated labour condition profiles for each European subnational region and perform regression analysis to identify not only whether regions with harsher labour conditions exhibit higher demand for foreign labour reform, but also which components of labour experience prove most salient. My modelling implements country fixed effects alongside controls for regional industry composition and other determinants of voter attitudes that intervene in the conversion of labour experience to trade preferences. This analysis reveals solidarity with foreign labor as not a luxury restricted to monied altruists, but a politics equally derived from one’s labour experience.


From Social Science to Natural Science: The Methodological Transformation of Economics and its Limitations: Harry Deng (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: This research seeks to locate the methodological limitations of the field of economics. Since the 1980’s, economics has become virtually a purely quantitative field that relies on large-N and small-N studies, regressions, and other empirical models to explain the complex ways in which scarce resources are allocated among a large number of agents. In this sense, economics now largely subscribes to positivist approaches that draws upon the scientific method to find mechanistic causal relations between variables. This approach to economics is only applicable when there are slow, predictable changes in accordance with very specific rules and only allows dynamism within a defined system if the available dynamics conform to the rules of neoclassical economic theory. It has already been well-established by economic thinkers, such as Adolph Lowe and Daniel Hausman, that the practice of economics has been too restrictive and unreliable for inquiries into dynamic social processes. As such, this research seeks to add tangible substance to this debate by surveying the primary methodological approaches to the study of economics as it relates to 1) supply and demand and 2) money and prices. By doing so, I will also examine their limitations and shortcomings. As such, I argue that an approach to economics insofar as it aims to explain complex socio-political processes is only satisfactory when it accounts for the political economy and that our current era of productive incoherence is the result of the methodological transformation of economics from a social science to a natural science.


Digitizing Genealogy: Governing Archival Access in the Age of Ancestry.com: Hailey Walker (Carleton University)
Abstract: The advent of marketized ancestry services has transformed personal and familial genealogy from the niche pursuit of family tree hobbyists into a multi-billion-dollar industry attracting millions of international consumers. Instead of perusing dusty rolls of microfilm, however, the genealogically curious masses want to craft their family trees and solve ancestral mysteries from the comfort of their home, on a smartphone or laptop. As such, collective conceptions of public records access are transforming, and so too is the substantive form of archival data itself. Hard copies of historical documents are no longer simply state artifacts, waiting in archival institutions to be discovered by patient historians, researchers, genealogists, and citizens. These archival relics have ascended new status as a mode of capital (both symbolic and material) over which state archives preside and negotiate conditions for digital access. Activists see digitization as a means of democratizing archival access beyond the confines of institutional corridors. However, the marketization of genealogical research and the subsequent race by private genealogy companies like Ancestry.com to sell ‘exclusive’ and ‘customizable’ access to ever-expanding online databases complicates things. This paper examines how public and private forces, political and commercial interests, and archival and corporate objectives, are not merely in contest with one another, but deeply entangled on the question of archival access. By analyzing the multilateral efforts to digitize archival data and the competing justifications for such efforts, the paper illuminates a rich empirical terrain upon which we might more critically examine the government, ownership, and use of population data today.