Colloquium

 

Monday, May 7, 2009
12:30 pm
UCLA Faculty Center, Downstairs Lounge

 

Is It Labor's Turn to Globalize?

Presented by Peter Evans, UC Berkeley

21st Century Neo-liberalism offers new opportunities for labor to realize old goals of building solidarity across national borders and the North-South divide. But, does labor have the capacity to take advantage of these opportunities? The global labor movement is often seen as dominated by 19th bureaucratic organizations ["trees"] while other social movements have moved on to 21st century network forms ["rhizomes"]. In fact, global labor campaigns are built around combinations of bureaucracies and networks. Figuring out how to better amalgamate diverse organizational forms is one of the keys to building an effective global labor movement.

About the speaker

Peter Evans is Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. His research and writing deal with the comparative political economy of developing countries, with a focus on industrialization and the role of the state. His most recent books include Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (coedited with H. Jacobson and R. Putnam; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); and High Technology and Third World Industrialization: Brazilian Computer Policy in Comparative Perspective (coedited with C. Frischtak and P. Tigre; Berkeley: International and Area Studies Publications, 1982).

 

This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Political Science and Sociology