1st Edition
Workers, Power and Society Power Resource Theory in Contemporary Capitalism
The book addresses how power and power resources remain important analytically as well as empirically dimensions for analysing contemporary capitalism. It provides a theoretical framework for studying, understanding, and explaining changes in the world of work and how that leads to changes in contemporary capitalist societies. Changes in the world of work are closely related to increasing inequality, growing social unrest, and societal polarisation. Hence the book seeks to deepen our understanding of how developments in the sphere of work have implication far beyond the direct impact on workers. The book focuses on how workers and unions utilise their various power resources to off-set the power advantage of employers and capital in the sphere of labour politics, which have crucial linkages with both cultural life, politics, and the market. Although workers’ and unions’ power and influence have been declining almost universally across the world, the argument in the book is that they still hold power resources that can challenge and sometimes alter outcomes in another direction than what employers and capital wants. Hence the theory can help understand the possibilities that workers and unions still have and how these resources affect the outcomes of the labour-capital struggle. A core contribution of the book is that it develops theoretical propositions about power resource theory, provides clear definitions of the core concepts as well as apply the power resource theory to a range of new or emerging topic fields like global value chains, minimum wages, and migrant workers.
Chapter 1: Power resource theory for contemporary society: A research framework
Jens Arnholtz and Bjarke Refslund
Part 1: The five power resources
Chapter 2: The structural power of workers under capitalism: A marketization approach
Ian Greer
Chapter 3: Associational Power Resources: How organisational properties matter for the power of workers
Christian Lyhne Ibsen
Chapter 4: Institutional Power Resources: A Critical Analysis
Sean O’Brady
Chapter 5: Ideational Power Resources
Colm McLaughlin and Chris F. Wright
Chapter 6: Coalition Power Resources
Amanda Tattersall
Part 2: Empirical applications
Chapter 7: Why varieties of power resources matter
Guglielmo Meardi
Chapter 8: Workers’ power in supply chains and global production networks – resources, contexts and agency
Jörg Flecker
Chapter 9: Leveraging power resources for a decent minimum wage
Damian Grimshaw and Mat Johnson
Chapter 10: Power resource theories and the case of trade unions and migrant labour in increasingly fragmented labour markets
Stefania Marino and Miguel Martínez Lucio
Chapter 11: Power resources in the public sector employment relations
Laust Høgedahl and Paul Jonker-Hoffrén
Chapter 12: Conclusion - Power resource theory: where are we at, where should we go and what challenges lay ahead
Jens Arnholtz and Bjarke Refslund
Biography
Jens Arnholtz is an associate professor at the Employment Relations Research Centre (FAOS), Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. His research interests are in the field of employment relations, with a special focus on cross-border labour mobility, posting of workers, Europeanization of national labour markets and power resource theory.
Bjarke Refslund is an associate professor in sociology at Aalborg University. He holds a PhD degree in political science from Aalborg University. His main research areas include industrial relations, labour migration, and labour market sociology, and he has been working on collectivism and unions, organising migrant workers, precarious employment, public regulation and Europeanisation of labour markets amongst others.
“This meticulously crafted book delves deep into the heart of power resources and labour, offering a comprehensive journey through the past, present, and future of the power of workers and unions.”
Valeria Pulignano, Professor in Sociology at the Centre for Sociological Research (CESO) - KU Leuven“Power resources have long been, and continue to be, a core determinant of living standards, economic security, capabilities, work conditions, and inequality in the rich democratic countries. This book digs into the details of what those resources are, when they matter, and in what ways. It's an agenda-setting contribution, and a very valuable one.”
Lane Kenworthy, Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought, University of California, San Diego“There are great differences within and between countries in the effectiveness of workers’ collective efforts to defend their interests. This volume makes an important contribution in demonstrating the continuing significance of power, and power resources, as analytical instruments for understanding these variations. The book also provides illuminating empirical illustrations of how power resources are deployed. It will be a valuable resource for students of collective action.”
Richard Hyman, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations
