Description
Book SynopsisDevelops a theory of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations expand their scope of action in ways that do not benefit their members directly. This title reveals how activist labor unions expand the community of fate and provoke preferences that transcend the private interests of individual members.
Trade ReviewCo-Winner of the 2014 Best Book Award, The Labor Project of the American Political Science Association "Ahlquist and Levi are able to show how the ILWU was able and remains able to transcend the life trajectory of its founding leader, Harry Bridges, and establish and maintain a commitment to social activism, political mobilization, and an expanded community of fate. Those who wish to move the labor movement toward this vision of social movement unionism would do well to examine this work for its insights."--Jacob Lesniewski, Social Service Review "The study is an interesting and convincing discussion of why an organization may expand its interests and even support causes or ideas that seem to violate the self-interests of its members. It should add significantly to both the literature on collective action and institutional choice."--Choice "This is an impressive book that sheds light on an important but poorly understood topic: Why do some organizations engage in solidaristic behavior to promote wider social justice issues, while others focus narrowly on the self-interest of their members?"--Evelyne Huber, Perspectives on Politics "The book is quite brilliant in terms of the rigor of its analytic argument and its use of a variety of methods to test and further revise core assumptions... The book is itself a major achievement of collective (research) action to which anyone working on these kinds of questions ought to pay special attention."--Carmen Sirianni, Perspectives on Politics "An essential part of any trade union program preparing people for leadership roles."--Rowan Cahill, Labour History
Table of ContentsList of Figures ix List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1: Beyond Economism 1 Our Argument 5 The Cases 10 Alternative Accounts 15 The Chapters 18 Chapter 2: Building an Encompassing Community of Fate and Winning Consent 22 Leaders, Governance, and Organizational Performance 25 Modeling Organizational Scope and Governance 28 From Leadership Rents to Organizational Governance Institutions 38 Summary and Conclusions 43 Appendix 45 Chapter 3: Pork, Perks, and Predation 53 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) 55 The ILA 71 Discussion 77 Chapter 4: An Injury to Anyone Is an Injury to All 79 Commonalities Between the ILWU and WWF 80 ILWU 84 WWF 103 Tension between Political and Industrial Commitments 113 Continuity Over Time 114 Conclusion 118 Chapter 5: Managing Heterogeneity 120 Managing the Heterogeneity of Locals 121 Managing Individual Heterogeneity 135 Conclusion 152 Chapter 6: Provoking Preferences 155 The Literature 157 Preference Provocation 162 Evidence of Preference Provocation 168 Evidence of Contingent Consent 181 Conclusions 183 Chapter 7: Political Attitudes and Behavior among ILWU Members, with Amanda B. Clayton 185 Employment, Compensation, and Shipping Volumes on the U.S. West Coast 187 International Trade and Public Opinion 189 The ILWU's Organizational Principles and International Trade 192 ILWU Members' and Affiliates' Attitudes Toward Trade 199 ILWU Affiliates' Political Behavior 212 Robustness Considerations 216 Conclusion 219 Appendices 220 Chapter 8: Signaling Solidarity? 230 Bargaining, Strikes, and Politics 233 The ILWU 238 The WWF 251 Conclusion 256 Appendix 259 Chapter 9: Conclusions and Implications 261 Union Behavior 262 Other Membership Organizations 265 Firms 268 The State 269 Other Implications 272 Communities of Fate 276 Bibliography 279 Index 303
