Theda Skocpol is an American sociologist and political scientist, who is currently the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. An influential figure in both disciplines, Skocpol is best known as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, as well as her "state autonomy theory." She has written widely for both popular and academic audiences.
Labor unions in the United States are organizations that represent workers in many industries recognized under US labor law. Their activity today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger trade unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.
Peter B. Evans, Professor of Sociology and the Marjorie Meyer Eliaser Professor of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, received his BA magna cum laude from Harvard, an MA from Oxford University, and an MA and PhD from Harvard. He is a political sociologist whose work focuses on the comparative political economy of development and globalization. He has published widely on state-society relations, industrial economic development in Brazil and Latin America, civil society, and international development issues. His work is thus also relevant to the international political economy research literature.
Kate Bronfenbrenner is the Director of Labor Education Research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is a leading authority on successful strategies in labor union organizing, and on the effects of outsourcing and offshoring on workers and worker rights.
Sidney George Tarrow is an emeritus professor of political science and sociology, known for his research in the areas of comparative politics, social movements, political parties, collective action and political sociology.
Mayer Nathan Zald was an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology, social work and business administration at the University of Michigan, noted for contributions to the sociology of organizations and social movements.
Michael Burawoy is a British sociologist working within Marxist social theory, best known as author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism—a study on work and organizations that has been translated into a number of languages, and the leading proponent of public sociology. Burawoy was also president of the American Sociological Association in 2004 and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006–2010, he was vice-president for the Committee of National Associations of the International Sociological Association (ISA). In the XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology he was elected President of the International Sociological Association (ISA) for the period 2010–2014.
Richard Hurd is a professor of labor relations emeritus and former director of Labor Studies at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Ruth Milkman is an American sociologist of labor, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY and academic director of the Joseph F. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies.
Bruce Nissen is a professor of labor studies and director of research at the Center for Labor Research and Studies (CLRS) at Florida International University (FIU). He also formerly directed that university's Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP).
Rachel Sherman is an associate professor of sociology at the New School for Social Research. Her first book, Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels, analyzes how workers, guests, and managers in luxury hotels make sense of and negotiate class inequalities that marked their relationships. Her second book, Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence, explores the lived experience of privilege among wealthy and affluent parents in New York City.
William Anthony Gamson is a professor of Sociology at Boston College, where he is also the co-director of the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP). He is the author of numerous books and articles on political discourse, the mass-media and social movements from as early as the 1960s. His influential works include Power and Discontent (1968), The Strategy of Social Protest (1975), What's News (1984), and Talking Politics (2002), as well as numerous editions of the simulation game SimSoc.
Evelyn Nakano Glenn is a Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities she serves as Founding Director of the University's Center for Race and Gender (CRG). The CRG is a leading U.S. academic center for the study of intersectionality among gender, race and class social groups and institutions. In June 2008 Prof. Glenn was elected President of the 15,000 member American Sociological Association. She served as President-elect during the 2008-2009 academic year, assumed her presidency at the annual ASA national convention in San Francisco in August 2009, served as President of the Association during the 2009-2010 year, and continued to serve on the ASA governing Council as Past-president until August 2011. Her Presidential Address, given at the 2010 meetings in Atlanta, was entitled "Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance," and was printed as the lead article in the American Sociological Review.
Karen Barkey is the Haas Distinguished Chair of Religious Diversity at the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and a Professor of sociology at University of California, Berkeley. She was previously a Professor of sociology and history at Columbia University.
Marshall Ganz is the Rita T. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Introduced to organizing in Civil Rights Movement, he worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers for sixteen years, became trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups, and returned to Harvard where he earned his PhD in Sociology (2000). He is credited with devising the successful grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama’s winning 2008 presidential campaign.
Jackie Smith is an American sociologist. She specializes in Political economy and Transnational organization social movements. Since 2011, she has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Smith currently serves as editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research, an official journal of the American Sociological Association and published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh. She is an advocate for the Open Access movement, arguing that scholarly societies should consider publishing options beyond those of major publishers.. She is a leading advocate for building the Human Rights City worldwide movement.
Jeffrey Praed Broadbent is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota whose academic focus includes comparative sociology; culture and structure; environmental sociology; Japanese society; networks and identity; political sociology; qualitative methods; social movements; and East Asian society. He is also a member of the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Dorothy Sue Cobble is an American historian, and a specialist in the historical study of work, social movements, and feminism in the United States and globally. She is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University, holding dual appointments in the Departments of Labor Studies and History since 1986.
Kathleen Thelen is an American political scientist. She is the Ford of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a permanent external member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), and a faculty associate at the Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University. She received her B.A. from the University of Kansas before obtaining both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a leading authority on the origins and evolution of political-economic institutions in the rich democracies.
