Joel Beinin

Workers and Thieves

Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. He has written or edited ten books, most recently Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, co-edited with Fr¿ric Vairel (Stanford, 2013) and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (2010). His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals, as well as The Nation, Middle East Report, The Los Angeles Review of Books, South Atlantic Quarterly, Le Monde Diplomatique, and others.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 176
• Erscheinungstermin: 11. November 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 203mm x 126mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 194g
• ISBN-13: 9780804798044
• ISBN-10: 0804798044
• Artikelnr.: 43893077

Autorenporträt

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. He has written or edited ten books, most recently Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, co-edited with Frédéric Vairel (Stanford, 2013) and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (2010). His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals, as well as The Nation, Middle East Report, The Los Angeles Review of Books, South Atlantic Quarterly, Le Monde Diplomatique, and others.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: Workers, Collective Action, and Politics
chapter abstract
The social movements of Tunisian and Egyptian workers and those affiliated
with them were the most persistent contestations of the 2000s and the
largest demographic component of the culture of protest that empowered
Arabs to want the fall of autocratic regimes during the popular uprisings
of 2011. However during the 2000s, mobilizations of workers and the
unemployed infrequently demanded democracy or regime change as such and
were not well integrated with movements of the oppositional
intelligentsias. Because of its relative autonomy from the state, the UGTT
was able to detach itself from the Ben Ali regime, reform itself, and
ultimately decisively influence Tunisia's post-Ben Ali trajectory towards
procedural democracy. In contrast, ETUF remained loyal to Mubarak until the
end. Newly established independent unions and federations did not have the
organizational capacity, resources, or political experience to similarly
influence the post-Mubarak political agenda.
1Colonial Capitalism to Developmentalism
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 provides the historical context for the argument of the book,
tracing the economic development of Egypt and Tunisia and their labor and
leftist political movements from the colonial era (colonial capitalism) and
their trade union movements through the era of decolonization. In the
Nasser era in Egypt and early post-independence Tunisia (the 1950s and
1960s) both countries adopted national developmentalist economic policies
(peripheral Keynesianism and import-substitution industrialization). The
IMF and the World Bank supported such policies until the decade-long
economic crisis of the advanced capitalist countries in the 1970s.
2The Washington Consensus
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 follows the histories of the Egyptian and Tunisian workers
movements, trade union organizations, and leftist parties as they contended
with the installation of new economic policies (the neoliberal Washington
Consensus). During the 1980s and early 1990s strikes, none of them
supported by ETUF, became a regular phenomenon in Egypt for the first time
since the early 1950s. In Tunisia both wildcat strikes and shorter warning
strikes authorized by the UGTT reached historically high levels.
3Insurgent Workers in the Autumn of Autocracy
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 argues that in Egypt and Tunisia (but much less so than in
Egypt), middle class mobilizations for human rights and democracy became
more active in the 2000s. However workers movements and in Tunisia an
uprising of unemployed in the Gafsa phosphate mining basin in 2008
comprised by far the largest mobilizations against autocracy. However,
there was a considerable gap between the abstract calls for democratization
by the middle class intelligentsias and the economic demands of workers and
the unemployed. The contentious actions of Egyptian and Tunisian workers
and the unemployed in the 2000s suggest that "political opportunity
structures," in the terminology of social movement theory, the "expansion
of civil society," and theories of democratization do not reliably explain
the origins, character, capacity to persist, or the divergent outcomes of
the movements in Tunisia and Egypt.
4Popular Uprisings in 2011 and Beyond
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 argues that workers' mobilizations were central to the movements
to oust presidents Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. Moreover,
those mobilizations continued after the ouster of the autocrats. In
Tunisia, pressure from second level leaders on the UGTT to support the
uprisings eventually resulted in the reform of the UGTT and its central
role in the consolidation of procedural democracy. In Egypt, the workers
movement could not compel the ETUF to stand with them and the movement
against Mubarak. The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions and
the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress were too inexperienced and lacked
sufficient organizational capacity and resources to influence post-Mubarak
politics decisively. The organizational weakness of the Egyptian labor
movement and the political illusions of some of its leaders explain, in
part, the consolidation of a more vicious form of authoritarianism under
the presidency of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Conclusion: Workers, Social Struggles, and Democracy
chapter abstract
Workers and those affiliated with them played a central role in the 2011
popular uprisings in Tunisia and in Egypt. Unlike in Egypt, in Tunisia a
reformed UGTT was ultimately the decisive force in the consolidation of
procedural democracy. Democracy in Tunisia was not due to its stronger
civil society. In Tunisia, as in Egypt "civil society organizations" - most
commonly understood as NGOs - except for the Tunisian Bar Association, did
not launch the uprising. The UGTT was the overwhelmingly preponderant force
in the Quartet (along with the Bar Association, UTICA and the LTDH) that
established procedural democracy. The economic and social demands that were
at the core of the uprisings in both Tunisia and Egypt remain unanswered.