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All Outputs (19)

Water Grabbing, Capitalist Accumulation and Resistance: Conceptualising the Multiple Dimensions of Class Struggle (2023)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Moore, M. (2023). Water Grabbing, Capitalist Accumulation and Resistance: Conceptualising the Multiple Dimensions of Class Struggle. Global Labour Journal, 14(1), 2-20. https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5074

The purpose of this article is to reflect on how we can conceptualise the multiple types of struggles over water. Through a historical materialist engagement with social reproduction theorists, post-colonial interventions and eco-socialism, we argue... Read More about Water Grabbing, Capitalist Accumulation and Resistance: Conceptualising the Multiple Dimensions of Class Struggle.

Is capitalism structurally indifferent to gender?: Routes to a value theory of reproductive labour (2021)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Morton, A. D. (2021). Is capitalism structurally indifferent to gender?: Routes to a value theory of reproductive labour. Environment and Planning A, 53(7), 1749-1769. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x211031572

The contributions of Ellen Meiksins Wood to social property relations arguments have facilitated an enhanced understanding of the historical specificity of capitalism and its structuring conditions. Yet such arguments also have some questionable assu... Read More about Is capitalism structurally indifferent to gender?: Routes to a value theory of reproductive labour.

Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe (2021)
Book
Bieler, A. (2021). Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755640409

In the wake of the global financial crisis, water services have come under renewed neoliberal assault across Europe. At the same time, the struggle against water privatization has continued to pick up pace; from the re-municipalization of water in Gr... Read More about Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe.

Labour conflicts in the Global South: towards a new theory of resistance? (2021)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Nowak, J. (2021). Labour conflicts in the Global South: towards a new theory of resistance?. Globalizations, https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2021.1915611

This article reflects on the insights generated by the contributions to the special issue on labour conflicts in the Global South. We emphasize first the need to go beyond Eurocentric industrial relations concepts forged in the historically specific... Read More about Labour conflicts in the Global South: towards a new theory of resistance?.

Baltic labour in the crucible of capitalist exploitation: Reassessing ‘post-communist’ transformation (2020)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Salyga, J. (2020). Baltic labour in the crucible of capitalist exploitation: Reassessing ‘post-communist’ transformation. Economic and Labour Relations Review, 31(2), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1035304620911122

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this article reassesses 'post-communist' transformation in the Baltic countries from the perspective of labour. The argument is based on a historical materialist approach focusing on the social relation... Read More about Baltic labour in the crucible of capitalist exploitation: Reassessing ‘post-communist’ transformation.

EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis? Engaging the Post-Keynesian Critique: EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis? (2019)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., Jordan, J., & Morton, A. D. (2019). EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis? Engaging the Post-Keynesian Critique: EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis?. Journal of Common Market Studies, 57(4), 805-822. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12843

Post-Keynesians have delivered an important advance in providing explanations of the Eurozone Crisis, not the least in demonstrating how the formation of the European integration project lacked the means to manage effectively the macroeconomic imbala... Read More about EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis? Engaging the Post-Keynesian Critique: EU Aggregate Demand As a Way out of Crisis?.

Commodification and ‘the commons’: the politics of privatising public water in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone Crisis (2017)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Jordan, J. (2018). Commodification and ‘the commons’: the politics of privatising public water in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone Crisis. European Journal of International Relations, 24(4), 934-957. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117728383

In response to the Eurozone crisis, austerity and restructuring has been imposed on the European Union’s (EU) peripheral member states in order to receive financial bailout loans. In addition to cuts in funding of essential public services, cuts in p... Read More about Commodification and ‘the commons’: the politics of privatising public water in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone Crisis.

Fighting for public water: the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative, “Water and Sanitation are a Human Right” (2017)
Journal Article
Bieler, A. (2017). Fighting for public water: the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative, “Water and Sanitation are a Human Right”. Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 9(1), 300-326

Between May 2012 and September 2013 the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘Water and Sanitation are a Human Right’ successfully collected close to 1.9 million signatures across the European Union (EU), forcing the Commission into an official positi... Read More about Fighting for public water: the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative, “Water and Sanitation are a Human Right”.

Chinese labour in the global economy: an introduction (2016)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Lee, C. (in press). Chinese labour in the global economy: an introduction. Globalizations, https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2016.1207934

This Introduction outlines the main purpose of this special issue volume: to analyse new forms of resistance by Chinese workers against conditions of super-exploitation. After an assessment of the new international division of labour, we provide an o... Read More about Chinese labour in the global economy: an introduction.

What future for Chinese labour and transnational solidarity? (2016)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Lee, C. (in press). What future for Chinese labour and transnational solidarity?. Globalizations, https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2016.1207933

In this conclusion we argue that class struggle is central to the future of Chinese workers and the improvement of their situation. Technological upgrading in itself will not automatically result in better working conditions. Moreover, we point out t... Read More about What future for Chinese labour and transnational solidarity?.

Exploitation and resistance: a comparative analysis of the Chinese cheap labour electronics and high-value added IT sectors. (2016)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Lee, C. (2017). Exploitation and resistance: a comparative analysis of the Chinese cheap labour electronics and high-value added IT sectors. Globalizations, 14(2), 202-215. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2016.1204698

This article compares the electronics sector in the area of Shenzhen, based on cheap labour assembling goods for export, with the IT sector in the area of Shanghai, relying on a more skilled workforce manufacturing high-value added goods. It is asked... Read More about Exploitation and resistance: a comparative analysis of the Chinese cheap labour electronics and high-value added IT sectors..

‘Axis of evil or access to diesel?: spaces of new imperialism and the Iraq war’ (2015)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Morton, A. D. (2015). ‘Axis of evil or access to diesel?: spaces of new imperialism and the Iraq war’. Historical Materialism, 23(2), https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206X-12341412

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was waged by the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’. This paper will examine how the war was a space in the ongoing geographical extension of global capitalism linked to U.S. foreign policy. Was it simply the decision b... Read More about ‘Axis of evil or access to diesel?: spaces of new imperialism and the Iraq war’.

Transnational labour solidarity in (the) crisis (2014)
Journal Article
Bieler, A. (2014). Transnational labour solidarity in (the) crisis. Global Labour Journal, 5(2), https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v5i2.1154

The global financial crisis as part of globalisation has put labour movements under pressure around the world. This poses yet again the question of transnational solidarity. As a result of uneven and combined development, individual labour movements... Read More about Transnational labour solidarity in (the) crisis.

Uneven and combined development and unequal exchange: the second wind of neoliberal ‘free trade’? (2014)
Journal Article
Bieler, A., & Morton, A. D. (2014). Uneven and combined development and unequal exchange: the second wind of neoliberal ‘free trade’?. Globalizations, 11(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2014.860334

With capitalist social relations emerging in a prior system of absolutist states in Europe, the outward expansion of capitalism through conditions of uneven and combined development became dependent on the existence of multiple political entities. St... Read More about Uneven and combined development and unequal exchange: the second wind of neoliberal ‘free trade’?.

Transnational solidarity or conflict? Trade unions and neo-liberal restructuring in Europe.
Conference Proceeding
Bieler, A. Transnational solidarity or conflict? Trade unions and neo-liberal restructuring in Europe.

It is frequently argued that European trade unions have been co-opted into the neo-liberal restructuring of the European social relations of production. The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it will be assessed whether this allegation is actua... Read More about Transnational solidarity or conflict? Trade unions and neo-liberal restructuring in Europe..