Interviews
Power, States, and Wars
Over the course of several decades, Michael Mann's writing has consistently advanced thinking on great powers and the social orders they create. Combining a theoretical and empirical focus, his work is nearly unparalleled in its ambitious scope and meticulous attention to detail. Among his most cited contributions is his first article, which studies the changing relationship between states and societies with the advent of industrial capitalism. His magnum opus, the four volume Sources of Social Power, takes a sweeping look at power dynamics underpinning human societies from the Neolithic Era through the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Elaborating on the work of Max Weber, Mann distinguishes power into four types—ideological, economic, military, and political (IEMP). While these avenues for power may interact, they preserve an essenital autonomy and tend to operate through different means.
Rekindling Labor?
The uptick in organized and unorganized labor militancy registered throughout the pandemic, and in particular in strike and unionization campaigns in recent months, comes at a relative nadir for the US labor movement. The work of Kim Voss, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, brings the current moment into sharper focus against the longer and particular histories of worker organization in the United States—from nineteenth century workers’ organizations to more recent alliances between unions and social movements.
Long Crises
As New Yorkers grapple with an uncertain future, the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and its aftermath are often invoked by the press and politicians. Today, “New York in the 1970s” is shorthand for a city facing poverty and crime, running out of money, and suddenly confronting the end of one social order and the rocky emergence of another.
Investment and Decarbonization
In late March, the Biden administration announced the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, with approximately half of the sum dedicated to fighting the climate crisis. While the legislation would mark a sea change in federal action to avert climate catastrophe, many have argued that it falls dramatically short of the amount required to usher in a green transformation of our infrastructure and energy systems.
Restructuring Sovereign Debt
Ken Shadlen's research examines how international institutions can create unique challenges for developing countries and, in doing so exacerbate core-periphery inequalities.
Party Politics and Social Policy
In The Takeover of Social Policy by Financialization, Lena Lavinas names the “Brazilian Paradox”: the model of social inclusion implemented by the Workers’ Party under President Lula and President Rousseff promotes a logic of financial inclusion and market incorporation, and has ultimately contributed to mass indebtedness among the Brazilian population.
Feminism in the Union
Begoña San José is a feminist activist and trade union leader.
New System, New Society
Felipe González was Prime Minister of Spain from 1982-1996.
Revolution in the Long Run
Hector Maravall is a long time member of the PCE, a labor lawyer, and a leader of the Comisiones Obreras, the largest trade union in Spain.
Party Unity and Renewal
Roger Martelli is a historian of the French Communist Party.
Confronting Globalization
François Morin was technical adviser to Jean le Garrec at the State Secretary for Public Sector Expansion from 1981–1982 and an adviser to Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy.
Objective Constraints
Anicet le Pors is a French communist party politician who served as a member of the French Senate from 1977 to 1981, and Minister of Civil Service and Reforms from 1981 to 1984.
Changing Bases
Emanuele Macaluso was an Italian trade unionist and politician with the Italian Communist Party (PCI).
Creative Destruction
Claudio Petruccioli is an Italian politician who was president of the Italian national broadcast network RAI from 2005–2009.
Party of the Future?
Giuliano Amato was a member of the Italian Socialist Party and Italian Prime Minister from 1992–93 and 2000–2001, Treasury Minister in 1999–2000, and Minister of the Interior, 2006–2008.
Development, Growth, Power
Amit Bhaduri was internationally selected professor at Pavia University and visiting Professor at the Council for Social Development, Delhi University. His six books and more than sixty journal articles have consistently scrutinized the foundations of neoclassical economic theory and presented theoretical and practical alternatives.
Change the Furniture
Mark Blyth is William R. Rhodes Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University and a Faculty Fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International Studies. His research examines how the interests of states and economic actors shape ideological consensus and institutional development at the global scale.
Banks, Bubbles, Profits
Richard Westra is University Professor at the Institute of Political Science, University of Opole, Poland and international Adjunct Professor of the Center for Macau Studies, University of Macau. His research focuses on the philosophical underpinnings of economic phenomena, with an emphasis on financialization, globalization, and neoliberalism.
Economics, Bosses, and Interest
Stephen Marglin is Walter S. Barker Professor Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since he received tenure in 1968.
Trade Wars Are Class Wars
Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein's new book "Trade Wars Are Class Wars" begins with an epigraph from John A. Hobson: "The struggle for markets, the greater eagerness of producers to sell than of consumers to buy, is the crowning proof of a false economy of distribution.
Municipal Bonds, Race, and the American City
The rapid and expansive action taken by the Fed over the past two months in response to the coronavirus crisis has muddied the distinction between monetary and fiscal policy. In particular, its Municipal Liquidity Facility provides a path for financing emergency spending by local governments. In some optimistic accounts, MLF-backed investment has the capacity to dramatically reduce the geographical, income, and racial inequalities which have increased in recent decades.
The Postindustrial Welfare State
"The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism" is among the most influential works in the study of welfare states. Rather than conceiving of welfare and industrial policy on a single state-market axis, Three Worlds develops a typology to situate welfare states within broad and complex historical trajectories.
The Weight of Movements
Few theorists of social movements have shaped the events that they analyze. Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the City University of New York and one of these few, has studied and agitated within American social movements since the 1960s.
Austerity and Ideology
Kim Phillips-Fein is an associate professor of history at New York University and the author of the books "Invisible Hands: the Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal" and "Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics", as well as the editor and co-editor of several collections in political economy, business history, and labor history.