Tuesday 19 August 2014

Insurgency Trap - a new book by Eli Friedman

Friedman, Eli. 2014. Insurgency Trap. Labor Politics in Postsocialist China. Ithaca: ILR Press.

About the book
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, worker resistance in China increased rapidly despite the fact that certain segments of the state began moving in a pro-labor direction. In explaining this, Eli Friedman argues that the Chinese state has become hemmed in by an “insurgency trap” of its own devising and is thus unable to tame expansive worker unrest. Labor conflict in the process of capitalist industrialization is certainly not unique to China and indeed has appeared in a wide array of countries around the world. What is distinct in China, however, is the combination of postsocialist politics with rapid capitalist development.

Monday 18 August 2014

Inside China's Automobile Factories: a new book by Lu Zhang!

Zhang, Lu. 2014. Inside China’s Automobile Factories: The Politics of Labor and Worker Resistance. New York: Cambridge University Press.


About the book
In Inside China’s Automobile Factories, Lu Zhang explores the current conditions, subjectivity, and collective actions of autoworkers in the world’s largest and fastest-growing automobile manufacturing nation. Based on years of fieldwork and extensive interviews conducted at seven large auto factories in various regions of China, Zhang provides an inside look at the daily factory life of autoworkers and a deeper understanding of the roots of rising labor unrest in the auto industry. Combining original empirical data and sophisticated analysis that moves from the shop floor to national political economy and global industry dynamics, the book develops a multilayered framework for understanding how labor relations in the auto industry and broader social economy can be expected to develop in China in the coming decades.