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Market Wages: Patterns of Contentious Politics in France under Neoliberalism
September 29, 2023 @ 12:15 pm - 2:00 pm
Join Dr. Mark Vail of Wake Forest University for a TAM Friday Lecture on pension reforms and protest in contemporary France. Attend in person in FedEx GEC 1005 or join us via zoom!
From the “Yellow Vests” movement of 2018-2019 to the massive protests in 2022-2023 over President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms, the past five years have witnessed some of the most extensive French labor militancy since the 1990s. In contrast to stereotypes of French workers as fond of social disruption, Mark Vail argues that recent patterns of intensifying worker unrest reflect deepening fractures in the French social contract and the effects of decades of labor marginalization. He suggests that recent conflicts offer warning signs about the growing illegitimacy of the French state and augur ill for the future of French democracy.
Speaker
Mark I. Vail is Worrell Chair of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. His research focuses on the comparative political economy of advanced industrial countries, with a particular emphasis on social and economic policy, industrial relations, political institutions, and the role of political ideas and ideologies in Western Europe. Until 2020, he was Professor of Political Science and a Fellow at the Murphy Institute of Political Economy at Tulane University. He has served on the editorial boards of several prominent journals, is currently editor of the series “Understanding Europe” published by Agenda Publishing, and, since 2019, serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of European Studies.