Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India. This item is unavailable.Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India

Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected “informal” or “precarious” workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. What are these workers doing to improve their livelihoods? Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials, and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits (such as education, housing, and healthcare) from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits (such as minimum wages and job security) from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to “citizenship,” rather than labor rights. Agarwala concludes that movements are most successful when operating under parties that compete for mass votes and support economic liberalization (even populist parties), and are least successful when operating under non-competitive electoral contexts (even those tied to communist parties).

Rina Agarwala is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Government from Cornell University, an MPP in Political and Economic Development from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. Agarwala is the co-editor of Whatever Happened to Class? Reflections from South Asia (2008). She has published articles on informal work and gender in the International Labor Journal, Political Science, Research in the Sociology of Work, Theory and Society, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Critical Asian Studies, Social Forces and the Indian Journal of Labour Economics. She has worked on international development and gender issues at the United Nations Development Program in China, the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, and Women's World Banking in New York.