CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | McCombs, Jonathan Dewes |
|---|---|
| Title | The Makings of a Crisis: An Inquiry into the Role of the State in the Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis |
| Summary | The thesis considers the role of state in the creation of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Bubble and its role in spawning the current financial crisis. It outlines a brief history of financial markets beginning with the Great Depression with emphasizing the role of the state in their functionality. It then recounts the Sub-Prime Mortgage market from its beginnings, giving an overview of its structure. Using an actor-network approach, the thesis constructs a narrative based on eighty industry and newspaper articles, detailing the implicit associations as key discursive features. These features are then compared with a policy brief published by the United States‟ Department of Housing and Urban Development, where a correlation is drawn between the goals of market and state practice. I argue that the Sub-Prime Mortgage market embodied a neo-liberal governmentality, where a market solution was created to meet a perceived social need: the need for increased homeownership among lower-class residents. The thesis implies that a closed network of social relations between state and market actors, working toward the same end with different justifications, created the housing bubble.The thesis considers the role of state in the creation of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Bubble and its role in spawning the current financial crisis. It outlines a brief history of financial markets beginning with the Great Depression with emphasizing the role of the state in their functionality. It then recounts the Sub-Prime Mortgage market from its beginnings, giving an overview of its structure. Using an actor-network approach, the thesis constructs a narrative based on eighty industry and newspaper articles, detailing the implicit associations as key discursive features. These features are then compared with a policy brief published by the United States‟ Department of Housing and Urban Development, where a correlation is drawn between the goals of market and state practice. I argue that the Sub-Prime Mortgage market embodied a neo-liberal governmentality, where a market solution was created to meet a perceived social need: the need for increased homeownership among lower-class residents. The thesis implies that a closed network of social relations between state and market actors, working toward the same end with different justifications, created the housing bubble. |
| Supervisor | Kowalski, Alexandra; Vedres, Balazs |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/mccombs_jonathan.pdf |
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