Center for Work and Democracy Lunchtime Seminar: Nelson Lichtenstein, "Are Unions and their members populist?"

Respondent: Craig Calhoun

Lunch will be provided. All are welcome.

The support of working people, and white working people in particular, has been essential to the success of right-wing populist mobilizations and parties around the globe. What is the relationship between this support and unions? Are unions also movements for the same sort of identity politics? If they are different how? And what is the relationship between union membership and right-wing mobilizations? Nelson Lichtenstein, perhaps the foremost labor historian in the country, will share his views with the ASU community at a Center for Work and Democracy lunchtime seminar. Craig Calhoun, University Professor of the Social Sciences will respond.

Nelson Lichtenstein is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. He is the author of 16 books on labor history and American politics, including: The Retail Revolution: How Walmart Created a Brave New World of Business, The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination, and Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit.

Craig Calhoun is University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University and is the former director and president of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Social Science Research Council. He is the author of 9 books and editor of another 22 that address culture, social movements, education, religion, nationalism, capitalism, methodology and social theory.

The Center for Work and Democracy brings social scientific expertise to bear on rebuilding popular voice in the increasingly plutocratic politics of the United States. The biggest problem that confronts efforts to realize democracy and economic justic is not a lack of policy ideas or an absence of support or resources, but the limitations of politics itself. The goal of the Center is to produce work that rebuilds a politics that reflects the aspirations and policy priorities of working people. The Center will produce research, teach, and convene conversations, workshops and conferences that endeavor to research the academic community and the broader public. The Center is located in the School in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University.

For more information, visit the Center for Work and Democracy website or contact the Center Director, Michael McQuarrie, at michael.mcquarrie@asu.edu.

Download the event flyer

lichtenstein_flyer.pdf