Johanna Bockman

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. She has been nominated for a 2021 George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award.

Bockman is currently working on two projects, First, she 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 and is a founding member of the Cities and Globalization Working Group. 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" published in a special issue on PPPs in the Journal of Urban Affairs are part of this project.

Second, she is working on the 1980s debt crisis from the perspectives of the second and third worlds, including non-aligned worlds. 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

"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.

"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.

Expanded Publication List

“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

GLOA 400: Global Cities

GLOA 400/HIST 388/RUSS 354/SOCI 321: Post-Soviet Life around the World

GLOA 600: Global Competencies

GLOA 605: Interdisciplinary Research Methods

SOCI 303: Sociological Research Methods, Sociology in My Neighborhood

SOCI 320: Socialist and Capitalist Globalizations

SOCI 804: Sociology of Globalization

SOCI 860: Comparative Historical Sociology

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)