Agrarian Syndicalism in Postwar France

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 402-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Wright
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Mass Movements ◽  
Political Factor ◽  
World War ◽  
French Politics ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Economic Council ◽  
Marginal Power

In an age of mass movements and pressure groups, even the most rugged individualists find that organization pays. So it is that the French peasants, surely among the most rugged of all individualists, have embarked since World War II on a major experiment in syndioal unity. In place of their prewar organizations, which were relatively weak and deeply divided, a single Confédération Générale de l'Agriculture has brought together approximately 80 per cent of all French farmers. In the lobbies of Parliament, in the antechambers of the ministers, in the Economic Council, and in some 280 government commissions, the CGA represents the interests of the agricultural profession. Its existence plainly constitutes a new socio-political factor in the Fourth Republic.Potentially, a united farmers' organization would seem destined to be the most powerful pressure group in France. Organized labor has mass voting support; the organized employers have rich financial resources; but only the farmers possess both of those weapons. Yet the CGA today, after eight years of existence, continues to be a somewhat marginal power factor in French politics. Its dues-paying membership has dropped off markedly since the 1947 peak; its lobbying activities have produced only spotty results; its central organs are weakened by internal feuds and tensions. Critics proclaim from time to time that the CGA has no real influence among its members and no real prestige in the nation; they predict that it is doomed to disintegration or collapse. Clearly, the organization has not yet fulfilled the hopes of its founders.

scholarly journals Zagadnienie mocarstwowości Francji w dobie V Republiki (do 2007 roku)

2012 ◽  
pp. 233-284
Author(s):  
Marta Pachocka
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
French Foreign Policy ◽  
Multilateral Diplomacy ◽  
De Gaulle

During World War II and the postwar years, France’s international position has been weakened. The seizure of power by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 contributed to a stabilization of the political situation in the country and to a redefinition of French foreign policy. The article analyzes the international position of France from the end of World War II until 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidential election. Thus, the article covers the period of the existence of two French republics: the Fourth Republic in the years 1946–1958 and the Fifth Republic, which remains Hexagone’s contemporary political system since 1958. The article consists of three parts. In the first part the external and internal conditions of the birth of the Fifth Republic are presented, with particular emphasis on the role of its creator – Ch. de Gaulle. The second part discusses the importance of France in Europe aft er 1945, emphasizing its contribution to the process of European integration and to the development of relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the USSR/Russian Federation and the Mediterranean countries. Then, the third part of my article stresses the position of France in the system of international relations after World War II, analyzing it on the example of Franco-American and Franco-NATO relations, the French policy towards the Arab and African countries, and finally, on the example of the Republic’s multilateral diplomacy. I conclude that in the examined period 1945–2007 France is an example of the former global superpower, which builds and strengthens its international position as a regional power with global interests.

“Striking Deaths” at their Roots: Assaying the Social Determinants of Extreme Labor-Management Violence in US Labor History—1877–1947

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 541-575
Author(s):  
Paul F. Lipold
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
World War ◽  
Labor Management ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
The Social

The seven decades framed by the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and institutionalization of organized labor in the wake of World War II constituted a unique period of US labor relations, one that labor historians have identified as the most violent and bloody of any Western industrialized nation. Despite long-standing scholarly interest in the issues of labor-management conflict, however, important questions regarding the causes of extreme labor-management violence within the United States have never been adequately addressed. In this paper, I utilize a recently compiled and unique data set of American strike fatalities to statistically model the causes of extreme strike violence in the United States. The time-series evidence suggests that picket-line violence increased in association with (1) the struggle for and against unionization and (2) economic desperation associated with tightening labor markets. The results also both depict the stultifying effect of massacres and suggest that state support for labor's right to organize tended to decrease the likelihood of violence and vice versa. This paper not only thus provides fresh insights into classic questions, but also offers a basis for both transhistorical and international comparison.

Navigating the Fourth Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-99
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
West African ◽  
World War ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
African Students ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
African Populations ◽  
African Student

Through the end of the Third Republic, only tiny numbers of West African students managed to study at France’s universities. Barriers to higher education began to fall after World War II, especially after African populations collectively gained citizenship. Higher education became a high-stakes policy area, as French officials and West African students and politicians vied to influence the parameters and possibilities of the postwar order. Amid escalating concerns about West African student migrations to the metropole, French officials eventually opened an Institute of Higher Studies in Dakar. However, this inchoate institution ended up highlighting the fundamental ambiguities of overseas citizenship. As West African students turned increasingly to anti-colonial activism, French authorities finally committed to establishing a full university in Dakar. Paradoxically, the construction and consolidation of this French university took place during the period of active decolonization.

Analyzing the Roles of Country Image, Nation Branding, and Public Diplomacy through the Evolution of the Modern Olympic Movement

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Dubinsky
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Country Image ◽  
World War ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Olympic Movement

AbstractSince the Ancient Greek athletics and through the revivals of the Olympic Movement and the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, countries, cities and governments have sought to take advantage by hosting Olympic Games and other sport events. The purpose of this study is to analyze the different facets of country image through the evolution of the Olympic movement. Countries and governments used and will continue to use the Games to renovate infrastructure, build new facilities, expose local products and new technologies, leverage tourism, improve the local and international political and social image, promote tourism and show superiority on the sports field that will enable them to try and reach their economic, political and social goals. The article is significant as it analyzes how countries, cities, communities, and other pressure groups used the Olympic Games, since the revival of the Olympic Movement in the late 19th century, the new traditions after World War I, the political era after World War II and during the Cold War, the commercialized era and the legacy-oriented era in early 21st century.

scholarly journals The Problem of Productivity: Inflation and Collective Bargaining after World War II

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Samuel Milner
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Price Policy ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
World War ◽  
Unit Labor Costs ◽  
Work Rules ◽  
The New Deal

Unwilling to wait decades for the political decline of New Deal liberalism, the core industries of post–World War II America repurposed collective bargaining as a means to reduce the costs of organized labor. New industrial relation strategies known as “wage-price policies” linked labor compensation with productivity in order to stabilize unit labor costs and prices. After reviewing the emergence and diffusion of wage-price policy within the managerial community, the article analyzes its implementation during the tumultuous 1959 bargaining round between the steel industry and the United Steelworkers. The union claimed that the industry's goals centered on management's antipathy to work rules, but industry records reveal that work rules were only part of its broader efforts to contain the inflationary consequences of the New Deal.

Corporate Liberalism in the American Business Community, 1920–1940

1978 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim McQuaid
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
American Business ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
World War ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Corporate Business

Contrasting with the resentment of other power structures, especially corporate business, that democratic governments display is the obvious need of the powerful and the productive for each other in times of stress. Professor McQuaid follows the activities of a group of “corporate liberals” (i.e., big business leaders who believed that intelligent collaboration between business, government, and organized labor was an attainable goal) from World War I through the prosperous 1920s, the despondent 1930s, and the busy and prosperous years of World War II. He concludes that corporate liberal opinion grew more influential in both corporate and governmental circles during and after the period.

Social Science and State Policy in World War II: Human Relations, Pedagogy, and Industrial Training, 1940–1945

2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Breen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
Industrial Training ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Innovative Methods

During World War II, the organization Training Within Industry (TWI) developed programs to help industry cope with the flood of new and unskilled war workers. Guided by representatives of the new profession of personnel management and assisted by university-based social scientists, the organization developed innovative methods of industrial training that drew on both the scientific management tradition and the newer human relations approach fostered by the Hawthorne experiments. The introduction of the human relations approach was severely criticized in the postwar era for its manipulative potential, but the wartime training program on which it wasbased did not exhibit that tendency. Moreover, management, which theoretically should have embraced TWI programs, was unsupportive, and organized labor, which had reason to be suspicious, wasvery responsive. Workplace reform, not the psychological conditioning of workers, drove the TWI programs.

4. Confronting change

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Charles Reagan Wilson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Black Leadership ◽  
World War ◽  
The South ◽  
Major Player ◽  
The American South ◽  
The New Deal

‘Confronting change’ describes how the American South became a major player in the national mobilization for World War II. The war pushed the South far along the path of modernization. Democracy became a watchword during World War II, as the nation fought against fascism and emphasized that democratic values had to be affirmed by all as the reason for fighting. Ultimately, the war produced an assertive black leadership within the South, and the continued reform spirit of the New Deal led to aggressive campaigns for organized labor and for urban efforts to improve African American living conditions and opportunities. The rise of the civil rights movement was crucial to defining this period of American history.

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