Suchergebnisse

The article offers a state of art about the empirical study of the relationship between politics and social media during the last decade, from the point of view of the nature of the subject, new research techniques and methods used in the social sciences, the research agendas it has fostered, and some of the ethical dilemmas this research raises. The article is divided in three main parts. Firstly, we develop a discussion of the main research methods to approach the relationship between politics and digital media, big data and algorithms, which we compare with traditional opinion polls. Secondly, we offer a review of the main issues that have guided this research agenda during the last ten years: political representation and campaigns, emerging political communities, and new forms of collective action. Finally, the last section reflects on the ethical dilemmas and debates that arise from the utilization of new research methods in the social sciences. ; El presente artículo ofrece un estado del arte de cómo se ha venido a estudiar empíricamente la relación entre política y redes sociales en la última década, desde el punto de vista de la naturaleza del objeto de estudio, las nuevas técnicas de análisis y métodos sobre las que se han apoyado las ciencias sociales, las agendas de investigación a que ha dado lugar y algunos de los dilemas éticos que suscita. El artículo consta de tres partes. Primero, desarrollamos una discusión de los principales métodos de análisis de la relación entre política y redes sociales, el big data y los algoritmos, y lo comparamos con los métodos tradicionales de encuestas de opinión. Segundo, ofrecemos una revisión de las principales preocupaciones que han guiado la investigación en los últimos diez años: la representación y campañas políticas, nuevas comunidades políticas y nuevas formas de acción colectiva. Finalmente, la tercera sección reflexiona sobre los dilemas éticos y debates que plantea el uso de las nuevas técnicas de análisis en las ciencias sociales.

La crisis financiera de Estados Unidos en el 2007 tuvo un efecto remecedor en el mundo y en las ciencias sociales, y desató un sostenido interés por las finanzas,la deuda y el dinero en general. Este interés se materializó en el intento de abrir la "caja negra" de las finanzas (MacKenzie and Millo 2008; Langley 2010) y entender mejor las formas de acumulación del capitalismo financiero (Erturk et al. 2008; Krippner 2005). La sociología económica y la economía política se arrojaron a comprender cómo es que este dinero tecnologizado y virtual se reproducey circula a través de complicados cálculos y fórmulas que descomponen los atributos de las mercancías (derivados), las agrupan en nuevos instrumentos de inversión, les asignan una prima por riesgo, y las tranzan en tiempo real a través del globo. En este contexto, la sociología y la antropología han ofrecido en los últimos años nuevas interpretaciones acerca de la naturaleza o vida social del dinero (Ganßmann 2012; Nelms and Maurer 2014; Esposito 2011; Gregory 2012; Dodd 2014).

This project investigates why people in Chile acquired so much consumer debt in contexts of material prosperity, and asks what the role of inequality and commodification is in this process. The case raises an important challenge to the literature. Insofar as existing accounts assume that the financialization of consumption occurs in contexts marked by wage stagnation and a general deterioration of the middle classes, they engender two contradictory explanations: while political economists argue that people use credit in order to smooth their consumption in the face of market volatility, economists maintain that concentration of wealth at the top pushes middle income consumers to emulate the expenditures of the rich and consume beyond their means. These explanations do not necessarily fit the reality of developing countries. Triangulating in-depth interviews with middle class families, multivariate statistical analysis and secondary literature, the project shows that consumers in Chile use credit to finance "ordinary" forms of consumption that do not aim either at coping with market instability or emulating and signaling status to others. Rather, Chileans use department store credit cards in order to acquire a standard package of "inconspicuous" goods that they feel entitled to have. From this point of view, the systematic indebtedness of consumers originates in a major concern with "rank", "achievement" and "security" that – following De Botton -- I call "status anxiety". Status anxiety does not stem from the desire to emulate rich consumers, but from the impossibility of complying with normative expectations about what a middle class family should be (and have) that outweigh wage improvements. The project thus investigates the way in which "status anxiety" is systematically reproduced by means of two broad mechanisms that prompt people to acquire consumer debt. The first mechanism generating debt stems from an increase of real wages and high levels of inequality. It is explained by a general sociological principle known as relative deprivation, which points to the fact that general satisfaction with one´s income, possessions or status, is assessed not in absolute terms such as total income, but in relation with reference groups. In this sense, I explore the mechanisms that operate as catalyzers of relative deprivation, by making explicit social inequalities and distorting the perception of others´ wealth. Despite upward mobility and economic improvement, Chileans share the perception of "falling behind," which materializes in an "imaginary middle class" against which people compare their status, possessions and economic independence. Finally, I show that the commodification of education, health and pension funds does not directly prompt people to acquire consumer debt, but operate as "income draining" mechanisms that demand higher shares of middle class families' "discretionary income." In combination with "relative deprivation," these "income draining" mechanisms leave families with few options to perform their desired class identities, other than learning how to bring resources from the future into the present with the help of department store credit cards.

Abstract
Following the creation of the Alliance for Progress in 1961, several structural reforms were implemented in Latin America in response to the political effects of the Cuban Revolution. Among these, land reform was arguably the most important policy. Using a unique dataset of land expropriations, and a plausible exogenous variation in land concentration, this paper studies the causal effects this policy had on political support for the incumbent party in the central government. In a context where the incumbent was losing political support (and the power of the left wing was rising), municipalities affected by land reform voted by 3–5 percentage points higher for the incumbent than municipalities not affected by this process. Although it did not prevent the first democratically elected Marxist government, land reform decreased the political support for the left wing party. I discuss several theoretical mechanisms that can explain this empirical result.