After labourism: The neoliberal turn by labor parties and the response by trade unions
Item
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Title
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After labourism: The neoliberal turn by labor parties and the response by trade unions
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:813da9b27911:10015
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identifier
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10084
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Creator
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Schulman, Jason,
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Contributor
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Susan Woodward
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political science | class | labor | neoliberalism | salariat | social democracy | union
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Abstract
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Explanations for the embrace of pro-market policies by social democratic parties over the last thirty years have pointed to various factors, most commonly the globalization of production and finance, the shrinking of the blue-collar working class, and the rise of socalled postmaterialist politics. The dominant theme in the literature is the transformation of these parties under the pressure of the global capitalist economy, which forces social democratic governments to implement benefit cuts, deregulate markets, and commercialize and privatize the public sector. Such accounts are insufficient because they do not take three important factors into account. The first factor is the change in the class composition of the leadership and individual membership of social democratic parties, even in labor parties with trade union affiliations (New Zealand, Britain, Australia). These parties are increasingly dominated by the salariat---a stratum of intermediate executives and technicians, professionals and engineers, all of whom enjoy a high degree of economic security, job autonomy, and education. The second factor is the diminishing of the influence of the unions within the very parties that are supposed to be their political representatives. The third factor is the lack of a strategy by the unions to ensure that the party leadership must listen to them and take their interests into account when formulating policies. This may be due to a longstanding lack of interest by the unions in engaging in politics (New Zealand) or a passivity by the unions which resulted from many years of anti-union Conservative rule (Britain). In the case of Australia under Labor Party governance (1983-1996) the unions were sufficiently united, disciplined and strategically minded to ensure that a Labor Party government would integrate them into the making of policy. The evidence suggests that the centralized organization of union federations makes the union movement appear as a credible force to labor party leaderships, and that to be able to moderate how quickly and how drastically labor party governments can enact neoliberal policies the unions must be politically active within their historic parties and offer a coherent economic program years before the parties take office.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
