Jonathan M. Feldman

Jonathan M. Feldman "is a native New Yorker and grew up in Morningside Heights in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Feldman’s principal areas of interest are studies related to democracy, economic development and demilitarization. He graduated from Bard College in 1981 where his Senior Project or undergraduate thesis examined the political organizing legacy of the New Left antiwar movement. He studied industrial policy and regional economic development at MIT, where he received a Masters in City Planning.  He was a Corliss Lamont fellow in Economic Conversion and Disarmament under the direction of Dr. Seymour Melman at Columbia University and later helped organize with Melman and Robert Krinsky the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament in Washington, D.C. in 1987.  Feldman also helped organize a national town meeting and radio broadcast, “The U.S. After the Cold War: Claiming the Peace Dividend.”  This event took place on May 2, 1990 and involved about 64 cities and over 38 radio stations.

"Feldman received a PhD at Rutgers University, where he studied under the direction Dr. Ann Markusen. His dissertation examined the factors promoting success and failure among U.S. defense firms diversifying into civilian production.   Feldman moved to Sweden in 1997 to study diversification of the Swedish defense industry.  Feldman has studied the conversion history of the McDonnell Douglas, Grumman, Hughes and Boeing Vertol corporations.

"In Sweden, Feldman’s economic studies have included analysis of diversification within the British and Swedish defense industries and spin offs, science parks and regional growth within Sweden. He has studied Saab's unsuccessful attempts to develop wind power technology. In 2003, Feldman initiated a European Commission funded project based at the National Institute for Working Life that explored barriers towards women and immigrants gaining qualified jobs in the Information and Communications Technology sector and how these barriers could be overcome.

"Feldman's current research investigates the prospects for increasing domestic content and production in the mass transit industry of the United States.

"Feldman is author of Universities in the Business of Repression: The Academic Military Industrial Complex and Central America (Boston: South End Press, 1989), various scholarly articles on economic development and the political economy of disarmament, and political analysis of militarism and economic democracy."

His blog is http://blogs.su.se/jfeld/jfeld-2aFcT9bq