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Governing Labor in Modernizing Texas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Stephen Amberg
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Abstract

The United States is a country in which the working classes are not well organized to participate in politics and the workplace. Four theoretical approaches encompass most explanations. They are culture and identity theories, convergence theories, centerperiphery theories, and institutional theories. Focusing on one specific case, the state of Texas, this article suggests that each approach can contribute to a political construction approach to the labor field that can better explain the patterns of organization. In Texas today working-class participation is very low, but 30 years ago union membership and voting were increasing; 100 years ago Texas was a fount of populism. A focus on the specific historical contexts of labor-management relations enables us to penetrate the contemporary post-facto image of Texas as one member of a category of conservative or nonunion states in contrast to liberal or union-friendly states. That binary image elides the actual more complex and diverse histories of labor struggles that constitute each side of this symbolic opposition. This article demonstrates that there is a real problem to investigate and suggests how we should think about it. What will become clear is that Texas is not exceptional when it comes to the status of workers in the polity. The specific historical pathways to the present suggest the significance of political struggles and ideological debate for the creation of a working class with influence and power.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 145 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2004 

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