scholarly journals Labour and democracy in the Maghreb: The Moroccan and Tunisian trade unions in the 2011 Arab Uprisings

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Feltrin

This article focuses on the part played by Moroccan and Tunisian labour in the 2011 Arab Uprisings and their outcomes, aiming to add fresh evidence to the long-standing debate over the place of social classes in democratisation processes. In Morocco, most labour confederations supported a new constitution that did not alter the undemocratic nature of the political system. In Tunisia, instead, rank-and-file trade unionists successfully rallied the single labour confederation in support of the popular mobilisations, eventually contributing to democratisation. The most important facilitating factor for these divergent processes and outcomes was the different level of working-class power existing in the two countries. On the eve of the Uprisings, working-class power was higher in Tunisia than in Morocco and this enabled Tunisian workers to mobilise more effectively. Democratisation in Tunisia, however, has so far failed to address the demands for social justice that were at the core of the Uprisings.

Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Dung ◽  
Giang Khac Binh

As developing programs is the core in fostering knowledge on ethnic work for cadres and civil servants under Decision No. 402/QD-TTg dated 14/3/2016 of the Prime Minister, it is urgent to build training program on ethnic minority affairs for 04 target groups in the political system from central to local by 2020 with a vision to 2030. The article highlighted basic issues of practical basis to design training program of ethnic minority affairs in the past years; suggested solutions to build the training programs in integration and globalization period.


1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin

AbstractContemporary scholarship on the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s has largely bypassed the history of the Menshevik opposition. Those historians who regard NEP as a mere transition to Stalinism have dismissed the Menshevik experience as irrelevant,1 and those who see a democratic potential in the NEP system have focused on the free debates in the Communist party (CP), the free peasantry, the market economy, and the free arts.2 This article aims to revise some aspects of both interpretations. The story of the Mensheviks was not over by 1921. On the contrary, NEP opened a new period in the struggles over independent trade unions and elections to the Soviets; over the plight of workers and the whims of the Red Directors; over the Cheka terror and the Menshevik strategies of coping with Bolshevism. The Menshevik experience sheds new light on the transformation of the political process and the institutional changes in the Soviet regime in the course of NEP. In considering the major facets of the Menshevik opposition under NEP, I shall focus on the election campaign to the Soviets during the transition to NEP, subsequent Bolshevik-Menshevik relations, and the writings in the Menshevik underground samizdat press.


1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-230
Author(s):  
Michael Hanagan

The process of proletarianization and its role in the shaping of working class consciousness has captured the attention of French social historians over the last ten years. Until recently, works on French labor history generally neglected the formation of the working class to concentrate on the origins of national working-class parties or trade unions; thus, general histories of the political ‘workers’ movement' abound, to the detriment of occupational or regional studies. As early as 1971, Rolande Trempé's thèse asserted that the transition from godfearing peasant to socialistic proletarian had only just begun when a man put down his hoe and took up a pickaxe. In Les mineurs de Carmaux, Trempé showed the evolving social and political conditions which led coalminers in southwestern France to espouse trade unionism and socialism. The recently published thése of Yves Lequin, Les ouvriers de la region lyonnaise, provides another benchmark in the study of nineteenth-century working class history. Lequin reveals that, for the pre-1914 period in the Lyonnais region of France, the dynamics of proletarianization were more important in promoting worker militancy than its end result, the appearance of an industrial proletariat.


Author(s):  
Richard Whiting

In assessing the relationship between trade unions and British politics, this chapter has two focuses. First, it examines the role of trade unions as significant intermediate associations within the political system. They have been significant as the means for the development of citizenship and involvement in society, as well as a restraint upon the power of the state. Their power has also raised questions about the relationship between the role of associations and the freedom of the individual. Second, the chapter considers critical moments when the trade unions challenged the authority of governments, especially in the periods 1918–26 and 1979–85. Both of these lines of inquiry underline the importance of conservatism in the achievement of stability in modern Britain.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hinz ◽  
Jeremy Morris

This article compares industrial relations in production sites in Slovakia and Russia owned by a single transnational automotive firm, Volkswagen. We analyse the empirical data using a working-class power approach. In Slovakia, associational and institutional power is well developed and influenced by the model of German work councils, but structural power is weakly exercised and unions rely on non-conflictual engagement with management. In Russia, structural working-class power remains strong, but the opportunities for transforming this into lasting associational, let alone institutional power, remain limited; thus, new unions make use of unconventional methods of protest to promote worker interests.


Author(s):  
ASYRAF HJ. AB. RAHMAN

This paper discusses the nature of social justice as enunciated by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian prominent scholar in the 1960s. Failure of the political system, economic disparity, coupled with the British interference in many aspects of Egyptian socio-political life led to the so called ‘Egyptian disillusionment’ with the existing problems facing their country. Qutb’s notion of social justice is all embracing; spiritual and material life, and is not merely limited to economic justice. Together with other Egyptian intellectuals like Najib Mahfuz, Muhammad al-Ghazali, and Imad al-Din Abd al-Hamid, Sayyid Qutb managed to propose some alternative solutions in the form of writings including that of books and journal articles. Some major issues discussed in Sayyid Qutb’s works:’al-Adalah al-Ijtimaiiyah fil Islam, Ma’rakat al-Islam wal Ra’samaliyyah and his article al-Fikr al-Jadid, will then be analyzed as to see their importance in articulating some social solutions in a practical and realistic manner, in true accord both with the spirit of Islam and the contemporary human situation.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Lucio Baccaro ◽  
Chiara Benassi ◽  
Guglielmo Meardi

This special issue wants to honour the memory of Giulio Regeni, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge who was assassinated while he was conducting field research on independent trade unions in Egypt. This introduction and the following articles focus on the theoretical, empirical and methodological questions at the core of Regeni’s research. Unions have traditionally been regarded as crucial for representing the interests of the working class as a whole and for building and sustaining industrial and political democracy; however, there is a debate about the conditions under which unions can be effective, and the role of unions’ internal democracy is particularly controversial. The article discusses the theoretical linkages between trade unions, democratization and union democracy and concludes with a reflection on the new concerns about the risk of conducting field research on these issues raised by Regeni’s death.


Author(s):  
Raphael Lana Seabra

This chapter aims to debate the pertinence of fascism as a concept for analyzing the recent socio-political situation in Brazil. It confronts the fact that there has been, in the last few years, a rise of politicians and movements that seem to reproduce elements typical of fascism: a tendency towards authoritarianism, leadership strength, the decimation of minorities, and a hatred towards the left and differences in general. Confronting the emergence of these phenomena, the chapter will examine certain facts, tendencies, and social classes in contemporary Brazil. The particularities of the political system of domination in dependent capitalism will be highlighted. The power and exploitation structure of dependent capitalism presents significant obstacles for the emergence of a minimally cohesive fascist movement. The country has, however, a repressive and political structure that is not very democratic.


1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Opoku Agyeman

Praetorianism has been authoritatively defined as a situation in which ‘the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of military force’.1 A praetorian state, by elaboration, is one in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system. The political processes of this state favor the development of the military as the core group and the growth of its expectations as a ruling class; its political leadership (as distinguished from bureaucratic, administrative and managerial leadership) is chiefly recruited from the military, or from groups sympathetic, or at least not antagonistic, to the military. Constitutional changes are effected and sustained by the militaty, and the army frequently intervenes in the government.2


1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-436
Author(s):  
Paolo Farneti

The problem of ‘tutelage’ of trade unions by political parties in italy must be seen against a background of: the structural conditions of the labour market (where trade unions are active) and those of the ‘political market’ (where parties are active) as masses for manoeuvre used to attain certain aims; the characteristics of the leadership of the trade unions and those of the political parties; the ‘styles of leadership’ (including the conduct of conflict) by trade union and party leaders.


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