Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In an exploratory way, the paper depicts new types of governance for atypical labour, more specifically temp agency work. The study draws on a comparison of two regulatory frameworks in two of the countries with the highest share of TWA workers in the west (as % of the workforce) – Netherlands and Israel (2.5% and 5% respectively, figures are for 2002). Both examples also demonstrate a complex evolution of a regulatory model that governs the rights and duties of the various agents involved. In both countries we are experiencing examples of hybrid rulemaking, with elements of auto-regulation and soft law, and particularly with a role for the trade unions and associations of temp work agencies. Drawing on a conceptual distinction between hard and soft law, and the debate regarding the efficacy of soft law as a mode of regulation, the paper seeks to identify whether such regulatory schemes provide a useful model for advancing the objectives of flexicurity and for constructing the European Social Model, or whether they are merely a neo-liberal disguise for deregulation?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The rise of the reform movement and its landslide victories during the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2001 in Iran brought the promises of political reform, and of promotion of civil society and human rights. The movement nevertheless failed to realize its objectives. This paper will seek to address the factors behind the reform movement’s inability to build required momentum and push forward political reforms.
To answer this question, this essay will theoretically rely on a synthesis of three main concepts in social movement theory: political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing.
The main argument of this essay is that, while there was political opportunity for a breakthrough of the reform movement, it failed in creating required momentum because of first, reformists avoided from mobilizing their supporters. Second, they failed in forging mobilizing structures. And third, reformist framing had two problems, one major and one minor: the major problem refers to the occurrence of inconsistencies between reformists’ claims and actions; these inconsistencies damaged their credibility and the loss of credibility reduced the resonance of the reform frame to a remarkable degree, so their mobilizing ability declined sharply; also reformist frame lacked strong linkages with the socioeconomic interests of potential supporters, and this deficit too deprived them of massive potential in mobilization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In 2001, the Mayor of Tempe, Arizona, Neil Giuliano, drafted a memo to the Tempe City Council asking them to create a process to study the development of Hayden Ferry South, the latest proposal for development in Tempe at that time. The proposal asked for permission to build a 336,000 square facility that would contains luxury residential living space, a movie theater, and many commercial shops. The structure was to be constructed on the west side of AA@ Mountain, also known as Tempe Butte. A group of local activist bitterly opposed the development, arguing for the preservation of the Butte as a historic land mark, a public space, and a sacred site. The major assigned the City commission, named the Rio Salado Commission, to gather community input regarding AA@ Mountain. This paper argues that the process set up for “community input” by the City of Tempe was choreographed to look like and give the impression of citizen involvement, while in reality producing negligible citizen input. This study shows how a group of local residents realized the City’s tactics and counteracted by launching a successful campaign to save the mountain

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, I examine the ways in which poor African-American temporary workers construct their work as meaningful and integrate it into their broader life experiences. Temp work, while unstable and generally low paying, is viewed as a means of gaining access into the formal economy in which they have been historically marginalized. Through temp work, participants not only gain the feeling of being productive members of society, but gain economic resources that they can use to perform other social roles that are important to them, including that of parent and provider. Yet this construction of the meaning of work is built upon lowered expectations of what work can be, and ultimately enmeshes these workers in contradictory sets of social relations that they perceive as an escape from their impoverished living conditions, but ultimately reinforce the racial and socioeconomic inequalities from which these conditions are created.