Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We study the effect of protest level on concessions from government and business. We examine how the level of protest affects the likelihood of a concession and that concession?s impact on future concessions.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The workforce at the GM auto assembly factory in Lordstown, Ohio, fabled in the industrial sociology literature because of its militancy during a 1972 labor dispute, has been slowly whittled down over the past two decades from a high of 12,000 in the early 1980’s to around 2500 today, primarily through the process of attrition: not hiring replacements for retiring employees, instead transferring these assembly jobs to its burgeoning production complexes in Mexico and to non-unionized domestic suppliers. To explain why this famously radical workforce has accepted this downsizing, this summary of a longitudinal interview project with workers moves beyond accepted accounts of deindustrialization by considering the political, material and ideological conditions underlying concessionary bargaining . As its threats to relocate production have become less credible and consequential, GM has turned to tactics which actively secure worker consent to job loss (Burawoy 1985). In sum, Lordstown has witnessed the replacement of a hegemonic despotism (in which threats of capital withdrawal constitute a “war of movement”), with a hegemonic despotism (whose job reductions through voluntary retirements entail a “war of attrition”).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The seeming rise in Islamic mobilization since 1979 presents us with a question as to the root causes of Islamic social movements in the Middle East. I argue that Islamic movements can be analyzed with the theoretical tools of a social movements perspective—a focus on mobilizing resources, political process, and framing. To understand the variation in political Islam across the Middle East, I consider how the dynamics of state concession and repression create variation in Islamic autonomy. Once the template of the Iranian Revolution sparks regional Islamic mobilization, the autonomy of the Islamic authorities is the primary explanatory factor behind the prevalence of Islamic collective action. Data on Middle Eastern political and militant organizations is analyzed for a preliminary examination of these issues. Initial results indicate that the dynamics of state-religion relations are important factors in understanding cross-national variation in political Islam.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Concessions made today affect future bargaining power. In a three-player context, war can be rational even under complete information if one of the parties expects its losses over time to be high.