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Precarious Work, Regime of Competition, and the Case of Europe

Precarious Work

ISBN: 978-1-78743-288-8, eISBN: 978-1-78743-287-1

Publication date: 19 December 2017

Abstract

The chapter elaborates a critical theoretical narrative about the political economy of European capitalism. It illustrates how precariousness has been exacerbated by the impact of the global financial crisis and the emergence of a new system of European governance. Theoretical accounts in the sociology of work and labor studies have demonstrated the complexity of the outcomes and widely discussed the role of national labor market institutions and employment policies and practices, political ideology, and cultural frameworks impinging upon precarious work as a multidimensional concept. The chapter’s core concern is to illustrate how shifts in power resources, and particularly the weakening and deinstitutionalization of organized labor relative to capital, has acted as a central social condition that has brought about precariousness during the years leading up to and following the 2007–2008 crisis. In so doing, the chapter aims to overcome the existing theoretical accounts of precariousness which have often been limited by one or another variant of “methodological nationalism,” thereby exploring the transnational apparatuses that are emerging across national economies to date, and which impinge upon the structures and experiences that workers exhibit in an age of growing marketization.

Keywords

Citation

(2017), "Precarious Work, Regime of Competition, and the Case of Europe", Pulignano, V., Kalleberg, A.L. and Vallas, S.P. (Ed.) Precarious Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 31), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320170000031001

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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