Johanna Bockman

Affiliate Faculty (Global Affairs)

Associate Professor

Globalization, neoliberalism, economic sociology, Eastern Europe, socialism and postsocialism, gentrification, Washington, DC

Professor Bockman works in globalization studies, economic sociology, urban studies, and East European Studies. Her book Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism was published by Stanford University Press. In her research and teaching, Bockman uses comparative and historical methods, moving beyond studies of nation states to explorations of transnational trends, such as neoliberalisms, socialisms, and the non-aligned movement.

Bockman is writing a book on multiple globalizations and gentrification on one block in Washington, DC. She reports on this project on her blog Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward 6. Her articles "The aesthetics of gentrification: Modern art, settler colonialism, and anti-colonialism in Washington, DC" in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and "Removing the public from public housing: Public-private redevelopment of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings in Washington, DC" in the Journal of Urban Affairs are part of this project.

Next year, she is working on the 1980s debt crisis from the perspectives of the second and third worlds as debtor-creditors. Her articles "Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order" published in the journal Humanity (2015) and "The Struggle over Structural Adjustment: Socialist Revolution versus Capitalist Counterrevolution in Yugoslavia and the World" in History of Political Economy (2019) are part of this project.

Click here for a short video on Dr. Bockman's research and teaching.

Selected Publications

Google Scholar: Johanna Bockman

“The Origins of the Concept ‘Gentrification’ within Empire and Decolonization: Ruth Glass and Claudia Jones in London.” Journal of Urban Affairs, 2025.

“Being There in Neoliberalism.” Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism 44(2)(2024): 13-18.

"The Aesthetics of Gentrification: Modern Art, Settler Colonialism, and Anti-Colonialism in Washington, DC." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2021), http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13046.

“Removing the public from public housing: Public-private redevelopment of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings in Washington, DC.” Journal of Urban Affairs 43(2)(2021): 308-328. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1457406.

"Democratic Socialism in Chile and Peru: Revisiting the “Chicago Boys” as the Origin of Neoliberalism," Comparative Studies in Society and History 61(3)(2019):654–679.

Expanded Publication List

"The Struggle over Structural Adjustment: Socialist Revolution versus Capitalist Counterrevolution in Yugoslavia and the World," History of Political Economy 51 (annual supplement, 2019): 253-276.

“Not the New Deal and Not the Welfare State: Karl Polanyi’s Vision of Socialism.” 2018. Pp. 200-208, in Karl Polanyi’s Vision of a Socialist Transformation, edited by Michael Brie and Claus Thomasberger. Montreal: Black Rose Books.

“Applying Post-Socialist Studies outside Post-Soviet Space: the Many Washington, DCs,” ASEEES Newsnet (March 2018).

"'Socialist Accounting' by Karl Polanyi: with preface 'Socialism and the embedded economy,'" Theory and Society 45(5)(2016): 385-427. Translated by Ariane Fischer, David Woodruff, and Johanna Bockman. Preface by Johanna Bockman. [Polanyi 1922 final publication]

"Structural Adjustment,” Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (2016).

"Home Rule from Below: The Cooperative Movement in Washington, DC." Pp. 66-85 in Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC. 2016. Routledge.

"Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order," Humanity 6(1)(2015): 109-128.

"Neoliberalism," Contexts 12(3)(2013): 14-15.

"The Long Road to 1989: Neoclassical Economics, Alternative Socialisms, and the Advent of Neoliberalism," Radical History Review 112 (2012): 9-42.

“The Political Projects of Neoliberalism,” Invited Response to Loïc Wacquant’s “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism,” Social Anthropology 20(3) (2012): 310-317. Hungarian translation in Fordulat 2012/2.

"Scientific Community in a Divided World: Economists, Planning, and Research Priority during the Cold War," Comparative Studies in Society and History 50 (2008): 581-613. Co-authored with Michael Bernstein.

"The Origins of Neoliberalism between Soviet Socialism and Western Capitalism: 'A galaxy without borders,"' Theory and Society 36(4) (2007): 343-371.

"Eastern Europe as a Laboratory for Economic Knowledge: The Transnational Roots of Neo-Liberalism," American Journal of Sociology 108 (2002): 310-352. Co-authored with Gil Eyal.

“Structural Equation Model of Customer Satisfaction for the New York City Subway System.” Transportation Research Record 1735 (2000): 133-137. Co-authored with Kenneth Stuart and Mark Mednick.

Her book Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism was published by Stanford University Press. Korean translation by Geulhangari Press 2015.

Courses Taught

Globalization Studies: Introduction to Global Affairs (GLOA 101), Globalization and Contemporary Social Life, Social Structure and Globalization: Socialist and Capitalist Globalizations, Social Structure and Globalization: Globalization in My Neighborhood;

Research Methods: Comparative and Historical Methods (SOCI 860), Interdisciplinary Research Methods (GLOA 605), Sociological Research Methodology at undergraduate and graduate levels (SOCI 620 and 303);

Urban Studies: Global DC (SOCI 320), Cities in a Global Society (SOCI 853), Global Crises: Cities and Urbanization, Global Cities (GLOA 400), The Urban World;

Other courses: Post-Soviet Life (RUSS 354); Contemporary Sociological Theory; International Development; Power, Politics, and Society.

Dissertations Supervised

Basak Durgun, Cultural Politics of Urban Green Spaces: The Production and Reorganization of Istanbul’s Parks and Gardens (2019)

Joshua Tuttle, Stewards of the Kingdom: Christianity and Neoliberalism (2019)