The American Labor Movement in the Age of Obama
The Challenges and Opportunities of a Racialized Political Economy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6320150 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dorian T Warren (Columbia University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 847-860 |
| Publication date | 2010-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives on Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1537592710002082 |
| OpenAlex | W2073779855 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 117 |
The relative weakness of the American labor movement has broader political consequences, particularly for the ambitions of the Obama presidency. Absent a strong countervailing political constituency like organized labor, well-organized and more powerful stakeholders like business and industry groups are able to exert undue influence in American democracy, thereby frustrating attempts at political reform. I argue that it is impossible to understand the current political situation confronting the Obama administration without an account of the underlying sources of labor weakness in the U.S. In such an account two factors loom especially large. One is the role of the state in structuring labor market institutions and the rules of the game for labor-business interactions. The second is the distinctively racialized character of the U.S. political economy, which has contributed to labor market segmentation, a unique political geography, and the racial division of the U.S. working class. In our current post-industrial, post-civil rights racial and economic order, whether and how the labor movement can overcome its historical racial fragmentation will determine its possibilities for renewal and ultimately its political strength in relation to the Obama presidency. If the labor movement remains an uneven and weak regional organization hobbled by racial fragmentation, the Obama Administration's efforts to advance its core policy agenda will lack the necessary political force to be effective
Democracy · Economics · Labor relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Secondary labor market · Split labor market theory · State (computer science · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies
The Uneven Geography of Racial and Ethnic Wage Inequality
Historical Institutionalism in Political Science
Current Perspectives on Teacher Unionization, and What They’re Missing
The Diffusion of Labour Standards
Economic Inequality and the Violation Economy
From Labor Law to Employment Law
Behavioral Pragmatism
The Political Economy of Racial Capitalism in the United States
When Government Subsidizes Its Own
Race and Representation in Campaign Finance
Labor Union Political Strategy in an Era of Decline and Revitalization
Contesting the Racial Division of Labor From Below
Belated feudalism
The wages of whiteness
The decline of organized labor in the United States
Politics and markets
When Work Disappears
Labor in American politics.
Reforming Jim Crow
Civic Ideals
Civic Ideals
Labor Visions and State Power
The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877–1900
Dividing Citizens
Fighting for a Living Wage
The Next Upsurge
Race, Money, and the American Welfare State
Hard Work
Forces of Labor
Varieties of Labor Politics in the Developed Democracies
The Great Transformation
Polarized America
Stirrings in the jug
Shifting the Color Line
The Wages of Whiteness
Bold Relief
The Shadow Welfare State
Varieties of Capitalism
Between Class and Market
The Transformation of American Politics
The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois
Wal-Mart
The Democratic Class Struggle
Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles
Unequal Freedom
From Widgets to Digits
L.A. City Limits
The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980
More than just race
Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development
Race, Reform, and Rebellion
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers
The Logic of Collective Action
The Declining Significance of Race
Economic Action and Social Structure
Race, Gender, and the Rebirth of Trade Unionism
Deadly Symbiosis
The Southern Imposition
A Movement Wrestling
Black Labor and the American Legal System
Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development
Masters to Managers
Chicago
Governing the Workplace
Conflict of Interests
Against Racism
Broken Promise
New New Deal
Distribution and Redistribution in Postindustrial Democracies
Cheap Labor
Oligarchy in the United States
Varieties of Obamaism
Organizing Power
The Politics of Inequality in America
Group Membership, Group Identity, and Group Consciousness
Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why
Wage-Setting Institutions and Pay Inequality in Advanced Industrial Societies
Silent Voices
The Politics and Practice of Economic Justice
Organized Labor and the Black Worker 1619-1973
The Unions and the Democrats
Governing the Workplace
The patterns of job expansions in the USA
Organizing Urban America
Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market
When Work Disappears
Categorically Unequal
Nongovernmental Politics
Inducements versus Constraints
Union Organizing under Neutrality and Card Check Agreements
Black Workers in White Unions
Capital, Labor, and State
Racial Orders in American Political Development
Union Organization in Advanced Industrial Democracies
The Primacy of Labor in American Constitutional Development
The declining significance of race
The Boundaries of Blackness
Organizing Women
Community Unions and the Revival of the American Labor Movement
Business Power and Social Policy
Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic Sociology
Poverty Research and Policy for the Post-Welfare Era
What Has Happened to the Us Labor Movement? Union Decline and Renewal
The Contentiousness of Markets
Institutional Emergence in an Era of Globalization
Karl Polanyi and the writing of The Great Transformation
When urban policy becomes labor policy
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,8 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |