Disenfranchised - The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China

In Disenfranchised, Joel Andreas recounts the tumultuous events that have shaped and reshaped industrial relations in China over the past seven decades. Through interviews with workers and managers, Andreas provides a shop-floor perspective of the transformation of hired hands into permanent work unit members, the all-encompassing control of factory party committees, the battles of the Cultural Revolution, and the disenfranchisement of workers through
industrial restructuring. Andreas introduces a general theoretical framework to analyze workplace authority relations and closes with an overview of parallel developments around the globe, chronicling the rise and fall of an era of industrial citizenship.

About the author

Joel Andreas is Associate Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His first book, Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Rise of China's New Class, analyzed the contentious merger of old and new elites following the 1949 Revolution.

Summary

In the decades following World War II, factories in many countries not only provided secure employment and a range of economic entitlements, but also recognized workers as legitimate stakeholders, enabling them to claim rights to participate in decision making and hold factory leaders accountable. In recent decades, as employment has become more precarious, these attributes of industrial citizenship have been eroded and workers have increasingly been reduced to hired hands. As Joel Andreas shows in Disenfranchised, no country has experienced these changes as dramatically as China. Drawing on a decade of field research, including interviews with both factory workers and managers, Andreas traces the changing political status of workers inside Chinese factories from 1949 to the present, carefully analyzing how much power they have actually had to shape their working conditions.

Additional text

Disenfranchised would be a very important resource.

Product details

• Authors: Joel Andreas, Joel (Associate Professor of Sociology Andreas, Andreas Joel
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2019
• EAN: 9780190052607
• ISBN: 978-0-19-005260-7
• No. of pages: 312
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / General, HISTORY / Asia / General, HISTORY / Social History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, Social issues & processes, Asian History, Sociology: work & labour, Social and ethical issues, Industrialisation & Industrial History, Sociology: work and labour, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Labor / General, Industrialisation and industrial history