Jake Newbury (UCL) - 2023-24 Students
jake.newbury.23@ucl.ac.uk

Pioneer Elites, Grey Markets, and Organised Crime in Arizona, 1945-1990

My PhD uses the state of Arizona to examine the role of organised criminal actors in shaping post-1945 U.S. political culture and political economy. To explore the contours of Arizona’s underworld over 45 years, I will combine two things: a new and unique breadth and depth of source material which I have unearthed and, in some cases, successfully lobbied to declassify; and the methods, theories and historiography developed in both Anglophone and Italophone academia. The analysis will produce a multi-dimensional account of the post-WWII political economy of the Sunbelt, the growth of Sunbelt conservatism, the transition from a manufacturing to a post-industrial finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) economy, the professionalisation of U.S. politics through lobbyists and campaign consultants, and the roles of race and migration within the transformation of the U.S. Southwest.

Primary supervisor: John Dickie

Secondary supervisor: Selena Daly