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- Håkansson, Fredrik
(författare)
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Standing up to a Multinational Giant : The Saint-Gobain World Council and the American Window Glass Workers' Strike in the American Saint Gobain Corporation in 1969
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the 1960s, a large number of World Councils were founded in a number of industrial branches. One of the most recognized World Councils was established in the multinational glass manufacturer Compagnie de Saint-Gobain in 1969, in connection to an international trade union action against the company. The purpose of this study is to investigate and understand the origin and character of this World Council and international action.The study places great emphasis on the American participation in the Saint-Gobain World Council and the international action, but explores, in addition, the work and function of the World Council, the international action’s outcome in terms of wages and working conditions, the so-called vertical implementation of the trade union action, i.e. the integration of several trade union-organizational levels in a single action, as well as the wider contexts beyond the purely economic to which the World Council and the action can be linked.An essential point of departure is retrieved from the historical materialist tradition in order to understand the conflicts of interests and the ability to realize interests on the labor market, in the production, and within politics. An in-depth discussion on the structuring of overt conflicts and international trade union actions is undertaken based on four specific theories that are based on the assumption that trade unions and employers are rational actors.The survey consists of three main parts. The first empirical section identifies the action itself—its parties, origins, course of events, and aftermath. The second empirical section interprets the parties’ perspectives and interests in the long run. The third, and final empirical section examines the structural conditions in the United States for conflictual sentiments and international action.The study provides new perspectives on the structural background to the American union’s mobilization and international strategies. It also helps to explain why the World Councils were short-lived and, in the end, did not meet the high expectations placed on them. At the same time, the study displays the main achievements and shortcomings of the international campaign against Saint-Gobain and the postwar political context to which the action can be linked.
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| 2. |
- Jonsson, Karin, 1980-
(författare)
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Fångna i begreppen? : Revolution, tid och politik i svensk socialistisk press 1917–1924
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies the uses of the concept of revolution in Swedish socialist press from 1917 to 1924. Political revolution and civil wars shook several countries. The Russian February and October Revolutions were soon followed by uprisings in countries such as Germany and Finland.While the social and political history of this period, with its mass demonstrations for bread and voting rights, often called the Swedish revolution, has been covered extensively in existing research, we know much less about the theoretical understanding of revolution among Swedish socialists. This thesis examines the concept of revolution from a perspective inspired by the Begriffsgeschichte of German historian Reinhart Koselleck. This foundation in the history of concepts aims at understanding how Swedish socialists, in a wide sense, understood their own time, how they related to the past and what they expected from the future, during the years of the First World War and the immediately following years. By focusing on what might be the most central, but also the most contested and most difficult to define, concept I hope to complement earlier research focusing on the social and political history of the period and its socialist movements.The main purpose of the thesis is to analyse how the labour movement understood revolution with particular weight placed upon the theoretical and ideological tensions between revolution and reform, determinism and voluntarism and localized and universal revolution. The starting point is the political and social changes in Sweden and abroad at that time and the place of the political press as opinion leaders capable of negotiating the space of political action. A secondary aim is to discuss how focusing on temporality can inspire new perspectives on the use of conceptual history.My research shows that how the concept of revolution was used was shaped both by already established notions regarding the socialist revolution as well as by the political situation at hand. The October Revolution forced a sharpening of its meaning, wherein different factions elaborated their understanding of it in relation to each other, which in turn determined how the concept was used fom that point on.
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