Abstract This study examines how work orientations affect the probability of trade union membership among German employees between 1991 and 2021. Work orientations are conceptualised as dispositions shaping action and classification in the world of work. The study tests the hypothesis that subjectivised work orientations are associated with the subjectivation of work and may reduce the probability of trade union membership, while material work orientations increase it. Using data from the General German Social Survey (GGSS), descriptive and multivariate analyses are conducted. The results show that work orientations influence trade union membership in different ways. Material work orientations tend to increase the probability of unionisation over time, whereas subjectivised work orientations display a negative effect only in 2021. In total, trade unions in Germany continue to represent material interests of wage-earners, but may need to address employees’ subjective demands more strongly to remain relevant for certain segments of the workforce.
Abstract This paper traces the global rise of China as well as its growing role vis-a-vis South–South development cooperation, particularly looking at the case of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It argues that, though China has historically faced similar developmental challenges experienced by other global South countries, China’s current path of autocentric development challenges the capitalist-imperialist world-system by undermining traditional transfers of surplus value from the latter’s peripheries to its core. This paper further argues that greater South–South cooperation between China and other global South countries, like Pakistan, could free up political space for these countries to emerge from a state of structural dependence on the global North, and embark on trajectories of autocentric development of their own. This, however, is contingent on the state of class struggle in these global South countries, in order to ensure that the processes and outcomes of this development are ecologically sustainable and people-centered.
Abstract Through trade, investment, diplomacy and technology, China has transitioned from low-end manufacturing to a Global South leader with advanced capitalist characteristics. The US has chosen confrontation over multilateral engagement to make up for its declining power and hegemony. This article critically examines the US–China rivalry in LAC as a 21st century inter-imperialist rivalry, where China has effectively penetrated the US ‘backyard’ with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It demonstrates that the Trump administration and its predecessors have failed to halt US hegemonic decline. It argues that China is challenging US imperialism in LAC with the unique form of ‘social imperialism’ that is the BRI, with a focus on acquiring essential resources and building infrastructure that can facilitate China’s national research and development (R&D). The BRI in LAC is also a critical component of China’s global strategy to weaken US belligerence in the PRC’s own ‘backyard’- namely in the South China Sea and Chinese island of Taiwan.
Abstract Since the beginning of the new millennium, the world has been witnessing multiple transformations on several levels. Economic crises, wars, political and ideological tensions, and even the rise of populism as a dominant political form, and the rise to power of a political figure like Donald Trump are all indicators of a profound shift in the structure of the global order. Arguably, the current situation resembles the moments before the First and Second World Wars and is even more dangerous than the moment of the fall of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the latter is the moment of announcing this major transformation in the structure of the international order.
Abstract Labour markets across the Global North have been fragmented through subcontracting, platformisation, and the erosion of sectoral bargaining. Much of the existing literature frames labour’s crisis as one of institutional decline and seeks solutions in organisational reform and renewal. This article advances a different argument. The central problem is not just union renewal but the recomposition of labour power under new structural conditions. Fragmentation disorganises collective worker capacity while strengthening capital coordination. Recomposition therefore begins not within union bureaucracies but through grassroots and rank-and-file insurgency in precarious sectors where institutional and formal union representation is more fragile. Autonomous assemblies, minority unions, workplace caucuses and worker-to-worker networks function as sites in which atomised labour reconstructs solidaristic identities and tactical capacity. Yet insurgency alone does not secure durability. Institutional consolidation becomes a terrain of struggle in which insurgent energies are either absorbed into bureaucratic routines or embedded into democratically accountable organisational forms. The future of organised labour in the Global North depends on whether rank-and-file and grassroots insurgency can compel union institutional structures to remain subordinate to grassroots control, thereby stabilising antagonistic gains under financialised capitalism.
