Withdrawn: Civic Work: Making a Difference On and Off the Clock

Abstract

Few studies have critically examined underlying assumptions of the civic spillover hypothesis that participation at work begets participation in civic life. We complicate extant theory by employing mixed methods and the most systematic dataset collected to date on firms fully owned and democratically governed by workers in the United States. Our findings about motivation to join participatory workplaces, substitution of workplace for civic engagement, and permeability of the boundary between professional and civic spheres lay the groundwork for a new conceptual model of civic spillover that illuminates the black box of this social process and sheds light on debates about the implications of workplace structure for democracy in America.

Inequalities in democratic worker-owned firms by gender, race and immigration status: evidence from the first national survey of the sector

“…The national sample includes Inequalities in democratic worker-owned firms approximately 20% of individuals and 25% of firms in the target population and reflects the demographic, geographic and industrial diversity of the sector. A more detailed description of the dataset can be found elsewhere (Schlachter and Arsaelsson, 2023;Schlachter and Prushinskaya, 2021).…”

“…Literature on "civic spillover" examines the potential of worker cooperatives to cultivate civic values, skills and efficacy that translate into higher levels of worker political participation (see, e.g. Almond and Verba, 1963;Dahl, 1985;Pateman, 1970;Schlachter and Arsaelsson, 2023). A body of work on intrinsic motivation has theorized that cooperatives reduce non-material inequality in part by allowing workers to substitute wages for personal fulfillment (see, e.g.…”

The Constructive Dimensions of Social Movements

“…This paper lays the foundation for a more robust understanding of the relationship between resistance and building. It also articulates opportunities to explore links between the constructive dimensions of social movements and literature on institutionalization (Bell 2014, Nelson 2011, care work (Gaddis 2019, White 2011a, and civic enrichment (Schlachter and Már 2022). Empirically, it contributes to social movement scholarship through the first detailed analysis of the reinvestment side of the Divest/Reinvest Campaign.…”

“…I define the constructive as sustained, organized challenges to institutional or cultural authority that build social-relational infrastructure to meet collective needs (Day-Farnsworth and Morales 2011, Snow et al 2019a:10, White 2018. Constructive collective action takes a variety of forms on the ground from establishing worker cooperatives (Schlachter and Már 2022) to aligning the operations of local utilities with principles of climate justice ). Yet they share an ideological orientation toward solutions and engage in praxis to affirmatively build material and symbolic power (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008).…”

Another organization is possible: New directions in research on alternative enterprise

“…Meyers and Vallas (2016), in studying Northern California worker cooperatives, document the existence of different “diversity regimes” among them, with “utilitarian” regimes serving to obscure inequality within the enterprise, and “communitarian” regimes fostering attention to their presence. Hanson Schlachter and Már (2020), who provide quantitative empirics for Pateman's civic spillover hypothesis, find that in US worker cooperatives, only those enthusiastic about working at a democratic firm engage in significantly higher levels of outside civic activity. Spicer (2020), updating the prior generation's research about who selects into alternatives, found that in the US, alternatives today are more likely to draw from historically excluded populations, including racial minorities and immigrants, who are seeking to engage with, rather than escape from, the market, and are comparatively less motivated by political considerations.…”