Technology, Institutions and Labor:
Manufacturing Automobiles in Argentina and Turkey
(2018, Palgrave)
This book shows that labor responses to dramatic technological change is contingent on the institutional context in a given setting. Specifically, the study reveals that vocational education programs are highly relevant in understanding how labor unrest is governed in developing areas. This is because the content of these training programs shape ordinary workers’ attitudes towards new technologies and influence whether they will turn into unrepentant luddites or flexible bees. To reveal these dynamics, this book traces diverse trajectories of manufacturing worker consent in the Global South through the lens of vocational education and training reform processes in federal and unitary systems. In federal systems, incorporating business expectations into the curricula at vocational schools becomes especially difficult when the local and federal government are engaged in a conflict. This creates opportunities for labor to stay in opposition for longer and continue voicing their demands. In unitary systems where no such discrepancy exists between different levels of the government, vocational reform could be a powerful tool in eliminating labor unrest. A key contribution of this book, then, is that geographic dispersal or concentration of political power influences strategies for governing labor unrest in the Global South.
This book shows that labor responses to dramatic technological change is contingent on the institutional context in a given setting. Specifically, the study reveals that vocational education programs are highly relevant in understanding how labor unrest is governed in developing areas. This is because the content of these training programs shape ordinary workers’ attitudes towards new technologies and influence whether they will turn into unrepentant luddites or flexible bees. To reveal these dynamics, this book traces diverse trajectories of manufacturing worker consent in the Global South through the lens of vocational education and training reform processes in federal and unitary systems. In federal systems, incorporating business expectations into the curricula at vocational schools becomes especially difficult when the local and federal government are engaged in a conflict. This creates opportunities for labor to stay in opposition for longer and continue voicing their demands. In unitary systems where no such discrepancy exists between different levels of the government, vocational reform could be a powerful tool in eliminating labor unrest. A key contribution of this book, then, is that geographic dispersal or concentration of political power influences strategies for governing labor unrest in the Global South.