Hey dudes. In the past, some of you have asked about my thesis topic. I'm not terribly articulate when I try to talk about it, so I'm never sure if I describe it properly. I've attached the preface to my thesis below; it should give you a pretty good idea of what my research has been about... if you care.
This thesis developed out my desire to develop a political understanding of organizations that have been traditionally considered in non-political ways. Throughout my undergraduate career, I have been primarily interested in political science because it offers method to understand human and group behavior in terms of the larger social orderings and institutions in which it occurs.
For this reason, I have chosen to examine private government theory, a perspective that seeks to understand a variety of political systems. Private government theory does not confine its scope to public governments; rather it seeks to understand all organizations in terms of fundamental principles that apply to all political systems. As early private government theorists have questioned, “…who has not heard of ‘office politics,’ ‘faculty politics,’ ‘union politics,’ and so on?” since “…the thread of governance runs through all the web of social life in varying forms” (Latham 1952; Merriam 1944).
From my initial research in private government theory, I learned two things. First, the private government perspective is incredibly flexible since it lacks no formally agreed upon definitions. Instead, scholars have relied on a number of assumptions to examine particular aspects of private organizations. Similarly, there is no codified list of assumptions; however, the assumptions different scholars have used are remarkably similar. Second, although there have been allusions made to the potential application of private government theory to crime organizations, to my knowledge, no such analyses exist.
My choice to examine crime organizations as private governments extends from my previous interest in the Mafia and the current relevancy of terrorist organizations. Through my research of theories of crime, I came across another issue that solidified my interest in using private government theory to examine crime organizations. Scholars of organized crime and terrorism have tautologically separated the two types of crime, arguing that organized crime, in addition to other factors that will be discussed later in this paper, is non-ideological. This definition categorically excludes terrorist organizations since they are considered ideologically or politically motivated. Scholars have thus confined their studies of crime organizations to “organized crime” (such as the Mafia, gangs, etc.) and terrorism. I completely disagree with this logic and definition and I saw private government theory as a means to examine both types of organizations based on more general functions, organizational structures, and interactions with the broader social orderings in which they operate.
In order to provide the strictest test of private government theory, I chose to examine crime organizations that are different in as many respects as possible. The Mafia, specifically the Genovese crime family of New York City, is a well established, hierarchical, authoritarian, profit-driven organization. Ecoterrorists, specifically “The Family” cell of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, are comparatively new, arguably anarchical, cooperative, ideology-driven organizations. Through my analysis, I hope to test private government theory and contribute to its development.
This thesis developed out my desire to develop a political understanding of organizations that have been traditionally considered in non-political ways. Throughout my undergraduate career, I have been primarily interested in political science because it offers method to understand human and group behavior in terms of the larger social orderings and institutions in which it occurs.
For this reason, I have chosen to examine private government theory, a perspective that seeks to understand a variety of political systems. Private government theory does not confine its scope to public governments; rather it seeks to understand all organizations in terms of fundamental principles that apply to all political systems. As early private government theorists have questioned, “…who has not heard of ‘office politics,’ ‘faculty politics,’ ‘union politics,’ and so on?” since “…the thread of governance runs through all the web of social life in varying forms” (Latham 1952; Merriam 1944).
From my initial research in private government theory, I learned two things. First, the private government perspective is incredibly flexible since it lacks no formally agreed upon definitions. Instead, scholars have relied on a number of assumptions to examine particular aspects of private organizations. Similarly, there is no codified list of assumptions; however, the assumptions different scholars have used are remarkably similar. Second, although there have been allusions made to the potential application of private government theory to crime organizations, to my knowledge, no such analyses exist.
My choice to examine crime organizations as private governments extends from my previous interest in the Mafia and the current relevancy of terrorist organizations. Through my research of theories of crime, I came across another issue that solidified my interest in using private government theory to examine crime organizations. Scholars of organized crime and terrorism have tautologically separated the two types of crime, arguing that organized crime, in addition to other factors that will be discussed later in this paper, is non-ideological. This definition categorically excludes terrorist organizations since they are considered ideologically or politically motivated. Scholars have thus confined their studies of crime organizations to “organized crime” (such as the Mafia, gangs, etc.) and terrorism. I completely disagree with this logic and definition and I saw private government theory as a means to examine both types of organizations based on more general functions, organizational structures, and interactions with the broader social orderings in which they operate.
In order to provide the strictest test of private government theory, I chose to examine crime organizations that are different in as many respects as possible. The Mafia, specifically the Genovese crime family of New York City, is a well established, hierarchical, authoritarian, profit-driven organization. Ecoterrorists, specifically “The Family” cell of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, are comparatively new, arguably anarchical, cooperative, ideology-driven organizations. Through my analysis, I hope to test private government theory and contribute to its development.
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