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Experiments in power-building: An intellectual history and comparative framework for informal worker organizing

Rina Agarwala,Chris Tilly

Published 2025 in International Journal of Comparative Sociology

ABSTRACT

This special issue examines how contemporary organizations of informal workers have experimented with power-building strategies across countries, employment sectors, and time periods. Its findings hold important lessons for our attempts to adapt to changing political and institutional structures and ultimately build a new model of social justice. In this introductory article, we first offer an intellectual history and motivation for the special issue, including the creation of the Experiences Organizing Informal Workers research network. We then review the comparative methodological approach used by all the articles in the special issue. Third, we draw on the rich case studies included in the special issue to offer an analytical framework with which to examine the relationship between informal workers’ collective action experiments from below and changing political institutions from above. This framework highlights four lenses: power resources, strategic and tactical repertoires, political opportunities, and dimensions of variation.

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