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Barry Eidlin

Associate Professor Barry Eidlin

Stephen Leacock Building, Room 820
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC H3A 2T7

Tel.: 514-398-6852
Email: barry.eidlin [at] mcgill.ca

Office Hours:

Tuesdays: 10:00 - 12:00 or by appointment



Research Areas

Political sociology, economic sociology, organizations and institutions, comparative historical sociology, inequality and social policy, social theory, logic of inquiry, work, labor, social movements.

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Biography

(PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2012).

Barry Eidlin is a comparative historical sociologist interested in the study of class, politics, inequality, and social change. More specifically, his research explores the changing relationship between social mobilization, political processes, and ideology in advanced capitalist democracies. His research has examined diverging trajectories of working class power in the United States and Canada over the course of the twentieth century, changing party-class relations in the United States and Canada, intra-class conflict and organizational transformation in the Teamsters Union, and the effect of Walmart on retail sector wages, among other things. Eidlin’s major current project revisits the question of “why no workplace democracy in America?” Starting from the paradox that most Americans take for granted certain basic rights as citizens that they then willingly check at the door when they show up for work, the project first examines the history of workplace democracy, when workers didn't make such a stark division between their economic lives as workers and political lives as citizens. It then explains how this division between economic and political life developed and became entrenched. He is also working on a series of other projects broadly aimed re-theorizing contemporary notions of class identity, ideology, and politics.

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Recent Publications

Book:

. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in the Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics series) (2018)

Edited volumes:

Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 37: Rethinking Class and Social Difference(co-edited with Michael A. McCarthy) (Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2020).

Peer-reviewed articles:

"Moral Economies, Mobilization, and Inequality: The Case of the 2018 U.S. Teachers' Strikes" (with Eric Blanc). Forthcoming inResearch in Political Sociologyvol. 28 (2021).

"Introducing Rethinking Class and Social Difference: A Dynamic Asymmetry Approach" (with Michael A. McCarthy).Political Power and Social Theoryvol. 37 (2020).

"U.S. Union Decline, Revitalization, and the Missing "Militant Minority" (with Micah Uetricht).Labor Studies Journal44(1):36-59 (2019).

“.” New Labor Forum 27(1):70-79 (2018) (with Micah Uetricht).

“.” Labor Studies Journal 42(3):226– 32. (2017)

“.” American Sociological Review 81(3):488-516 (2016).

“Unions and Inequality.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, Janeen Baxter, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

“." Politics & Society 43(2): 181-211 (2015).

“” Sociology Compass 8(8):1045–62 (2014).

“Class and Work.” Chapter 4 in Sage Handbook on the Sociology of Work and Employment, Stephen Edgell, Heidi Gottfried, and Edward Granter, eds. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE, 2015).

“Continuity or Change? Rethinking Left Party Formation in Canada.” Pp. 61-86 in Building Blocs: How Parties Organize Society, Cedric de Leon, Manali Desai, and Cihan Tuǧal, eds. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2015).

“Ę.” Labor History, 50(3):249-267 (2009).

Book Chapters:

"Labor Unionsand Movements,"Oxford Handbook of Karl Max, Matthew Vidal, Tomas Rotta, Tony Smith, and Paul Prew, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Reprinted as "."DzJanuary 6, 2020.

"Social Class and Social Movements" (with Jasmine Kerrissey, equal authorship),¾-ɱCompanion to Social Movements, 2nd ed.,David Snow, Sarah Soule, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Holly McCammon, eds. (Hoboken: Wiley, 2018).

Book Reviews:

"."Social Forces, published online January 22, 2021.

"Review ofDismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions Since the New Dealby Michael A. McCarthy."Social Forces98(4): 1-4 (2020).

"Class War on New Ground: Review ofOn New Terrainby Kim Moody."Against the Current198 (Jan-Feb): 33-35 (2019).

"Review ofWhen Solidarity Works: Labor-Civic Networks and Welfare States in the Market Reform Eraby Cheol-Sung Lee."Contemporary Sociology47(5):605-607 (2018).

“Review of Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures by Betsy Leondar- Wright.” Contemporary Sociology 45:2 (2016), 206-209.

Popular writing:

“.”Dz,April 10, 2021.

“.”The Globe and Mail, April 10, 2021.

“.”Dz,April 2, 2021.

“” Jacobin, January 19, 2021.

“.” Jacobin, January 9, 2021.

“”Canadian Law of Work Forum, November 12, 2020.

« » (“Biden Won. Now What?”).La Presse, November 7, 2020.

“.”Jacobin, November 5, 2020.

« » (“This Election is Not the End of Trumpism”).La Presse, November 5, 2020.

“.”Jacobin, November 2, 2020.

“.”Jacobin, August 30, 2020.

".”Labor Notes, February 5, 2020.

“.”Jacobin, January 2, 2020.

“.”Jacobin, August 22, 2019.

“” (remarks delivered in debate with Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey at FreedomFest 2019).Dz,August 20, 2019.

“.”The Call, July 3, 2019.

“”Jacobin, March 26, 2019.

“”Marxist Sociology Blog, March 13, 2019.

“.”Jacobin, February 9, 2019.

"."The Washington Post, January 25, 2019.

“.” The Washington Post, September 2, 2018 (print edition).

“” (with Charles Smith, first author). The Washington Post, June 27, 2018.

“.” Jacobin, July 5, 2017.

(Republished in French as« Crise de légitimité du mouvement syndical à l’ère de Trump », Nouveaux cahiers du socialisme Issue 19, Winter 2018.)

“.” Jacobin, December 14, 2016. (Also published in Trajectories: Newsletter of the ASA Comparative and Historical Sociology Section, 28(Fall 2016): 46-48).

“.” Jacobin, November 20, 2016.

“,” LSE US Politics and Policy blog, October 19, 2016.

“.” Washington Post, August 11, 2016.

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Courses Taught

Undergraduate Courses:

SOCI 211: Sociological Inquiry

SOCI 312: Sociology of Work and Industry

SOCI 386: Contemporary Social Movements

Graduate Seminar:

SOCI 501: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

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