Institutions

By causing a serious gap in the optimistic literature on European integration processes, Brexit has provided numerous challenges for international relations theorists. In this regard, in the present article, three influential theories that best explain Brexit will be discussed: neorealism, constructivism, and the English school of international relations. Notwithstanding that both neorealism and constructivism are able to raise important issues, it seems that there are still certain shortcomings in the two theories in explaining Brexit. Neorealism relies too much on macro-analysis and material factors, and, on the other hand, constructivism tries to account for essential factors from the domestic or secondlevel analysis. Therefore, the paper's central question is how does the English School provide a convincing explanatory framework for understanding Brexit? In response to the question, the paper adopts a theoretical perspective to analyze and explain both the micro-level and macro-level of the Brexit phenomenon by utilizing the English School’s central assumptions: institutions, the great power status, pluralist-solidarist debate, and the balance of power. It is concluded that English School is able to explain Brexit more satisfactorily. According to the school’s assumptions, Brexit is not an oddity, but a natural consequence of internal and external equations in the United Kingdom.

Structural change plays an important role in developing any economy, so understanding it is critical to make policies that increase total factor productivity. The structural change that leads to an efficient resource allocation after trade reforms is desirable; the key factor that can affect the relation of "structural change and trade liberalization" with productivity is the quality of institutions. In this study, we first use the principal component method to propose a multidimensional index for structural change and then apply the ARDL econometrics model to evaluate the effect of trade liberalization and structural changes on total factor productivity in Iran during 1991- 2018. The results show that structural changes increase the total factor productivity, and trade liberalization has a positive and significant effect on total factor productivity in the short term. Our results also indicate that there is no long-run relationship in this period.

This study attempts to examine Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in the light of the ideas of Michel Foucault, specifically the notions of normalization, institutions, and surveillance that tackle the relationships among power, institutions, and literature. The analysis posits that, in the context of the 1960s, the American government took advantage of all the institutions which were supposed to guarantee the freedom of individuals to curtail their freedom. Seeking to create a normal, ordinary, and homogeneous society, these administrations have employed the police, law, prison, and other overlapping institutions that work in tandem to create circuits of institutions which guarantee to reduce  human beings to simpletons who are docile, meek, and ready to fit in place properly. The normality and ordinariness favored by the authorities are also implemented since the novel starts by depicting free individuals whose identities hinge on their being abnormal while it ends when their movement is shattered, and the protagonist is seen as a simpleton serving the forced labor sentence of the judges of both the government and normality. Freedom emerges as a mirage than truth as there seems to be no outside through which individuals can live outside the domination of controlling apparatuses.