Political Participation and the Workplace: The Impact of the Public/Private Sectoral Cleavage

• In Event: 30406 - Politicizing the Workplace - The Intersections of Politics and Labor Relations

Abstract

In this paper we examine the impact of the type of workplace on political participation. We explore data from an original survey of nine European countries and aim to disentangle the relationship between individual resources, places of work and mobilization for different types of political engagement from institutional forms such as voting to extra-institutional ones such as protest, consumer participation, and digital participation. We are interested to understand how different types of places of work might provide mobilizing contexts of participation such as for example the membership of parties or trade unions. Drawing from previous research on the political implications of sectoral production cleavages, we focus on the distinction between public and private employment sectors. Contrary to most existing studies, however, we examine whether occupation impinges in distinct or similar ways on different modes of participation, both institutional and extra-institutional. As such, this paper aims to bridge perspectives and speaks to research on political participation and social movements, but also the sociology of work and stratification.

Author

• Maria Grasso, Queen Mary University of London