Call for Papers: Workshop “Bringing Politics Back to Work”
ECPR Joint Sessions, May 20-23, 2025, at Charles University, Prague

Workshop details and paper submission
Deadline for abstracts: November 21, 2024

The organization of work has undergone tremendous change in recent decades, yet we know little about how this has impacted the political outlook of the employed. We ask: How does the changing organization of work, how do well-being and social relations at the workplace, and how do job quality and job satisfaction impact political conflict in advanced democracies? Linking established literature in political economy and political science with that in the sociology of work and organization, this workshop aims to set an agenda for studying the political implications of what happens at the heart of the economy: at work.

An extensive literature in political economy shows that globalization, automatization and sectoral change have impacted labor markets and occupational class structure, what in return has reshaped political conflict in advanced democracies. This literature has left surprisingly untouched, however, the blackbox of what happens at work, i.e., inside enterprises or public organizations. Work organization, management practices, job quality, and well-being at work are, in return, subject to an extensive literature in sociology, psychology, and economics – which, however, rarely establishes connections with outcomes at the political level.

This missing link is surprising, as work is a site where people spend much of their awake time, experience intergroup contact and collaboration, authority, and conflict about entitlements. It is a site where we gain a sense of social status and recognition, of efficacy, security, and fairness –or, on the contrary, experience powerlessness, insecurity, and injustice. This has a formative impact on political outlooks, including on major phenomena of our time such as preferences for redistribution, political populism, or affective polarization.

“Bringing politics back to work”, we aim to shed light on mechanisms that link work and politics. We are looking forward to receiving paper proposals that contribute to the following questions by the deadline of 21st November 2024:

▪ 1: How do the organization of work, wellbeing at work, job quality, or contact/ conflict at the workplace inform individual political preferences in advanced democracies?

▪ 2: How does this relationship between work and politics vary by groups and context (countries, sectors, occupations, gender, age)?

▪ 3: How do political actors such as parties or unions address and politicize contemporary experiences at work?

▪ 4: How do social policies and welfare state arrangements influence these dynamics?

Organizers:
Paulus Wagner, European University Institute, paulus.wagner@eui.eu
Bruno Palier, Sciences Po Paris, bruno.palier@sciencespo.fr

Endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Political Economy and Welfare State Politics