Online PhD defence by Aleksandra Piletić

The overarching dilemma of this dissertation is one that permeates most discussions on capitalist diversity: is it possible to account for both contextual specificity and the interrelation and interconnectedness of different capitalist contexts? And if so, how?

Neoliberal restructuring has shown a particularly high degree of complexity, and its systemic and contingent institutional features have been difficult to discern. This is especially evident in cities, which have emerged as key anchors for neoliberalism both within their respective national contexts and in a broader global context. This research project therefore seeks to develop an understanding of these systemic and contingent impulsions within neoliberalism, as well as to ascertain how cities figure in this regard.

She focuses on three cities - New York, Johannesburg and Stockholm. These have been selected because they exhibit considerable divergences amongst each other and are embedded within very different capitalist economies on the national scale (with correspondingly divergent forms of insertion into the global economy).

Even though all three cases display different institutional features, I show that all of them have experienced institutional patterning through the rise of the financial monetary regime and its complementary relation with internationalization of competition, that is, through the institutionalization of finance into the urban structure.

Doctoral board

Chair

Professor Inge Hutter

Doctoral dissertation supervisor

Professor Wil Hout

Co-supervisor

Dr Karim Kniou

Members of the Full Doctoral Committee

Professor Robert Boyer, L'École des hautes études en sciences sociales

Professor Jamie Peck, University of British Colombia

Professor Magnus Ryner, King’s College London

Dr Alke Jenss, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute

Dr Jess Bier, Erasmus University