POLI 4485 Labor in Movement: Politics of the Working Class in Comparative and Historical Perspective

The working class has emerged as of the most significant forces of political organization and change in the modern era. This undergraduate level seminar will focus on the emergence of the working class as a political movement across different political and historical trajectories, from Western Europe to the Americas and the post-colonial world. The seminar will begin with a discussion of the origins of working class mobilization as a response to the social and economic transformation produced by the extension of market capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, then will consider the different ways working class movements have shaped political cleavages before reviewing some more recent events, such as deindustrialization, the end of the Cold War and immigration that have fueled the rise of working class populism.