Sidney A. Rothstein

Photo of Sidney A. Rothstein

Assistant Professor of Political Science

[email protected]
413-597-2680
CV
Schapiro Hall Rm 212

Education

B.A. Reed College (2009)
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, Political Science (2017)

Areas of Expertise

I study the political economy of wealthy democracies in comparative perspective, focusing on Europe and the United States. My current research examines the politics of digital transformation, and seeks to explain how the transition to the knowledge economy reshapes relationships of power, and patterns of inequality, in different countries. In Recoding Power: Tactics for Mobilizing Tech Workers (Oxford University Press, 2022), I trace how workers in the tech sector, unable to rely on organized labor’s established resources for collective action, have developed novel tactics to exercise power in the workplace. Another project, The Tech-Finance Bloc: Political Power and National Strategies for Digital Transformation, is based on the observation that nearly every country in the world has developed strategies to drive economic growth by promoting the tech sector, but that these strategies differ substantially. To explain why, I investigate how different configurations of the tech sector’s relationship to finance shape the policies that countries adopt in their efforts to steer the path of technological change.

Courses

PSCI 246 SEM

Introduction to Capitalism (not offered 2023/24)

PSCI 280 TUT

Silicon Valley: Digital Transformation and Democracy (not offered 2023/24)

PSCI 289 SEM

The welfare state in comparative perspective (not offered 2023/24)

PSCI 342 SEM

Beyond the welfare state (not offered 2023/24)

PSCI 387 SEM

The Firm (not offered 2023/24)

Selected Publications

(Complete list at Google Scholar)

Books

Recoding Power: Tactics for Mobilizing Tech Workers (Oxford University Press, 2022)

Imbalance: Germany’s Political Economy after the Social Democratic Century (Routledge, 2021) [ed., with Tobias Schulze-Cleven]

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

“Coordinating digital transformation: The discursive context of production in the knowledge economy,”Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society 2, no. 1 (2022), 1-34.

“How workers mobilize in financializing firms: A theory of discursive opportunism,”British Journal of Industrial Relations 60, no. 1 (2022), 57-77.

“Toward a discursive approach to growth models: Social blocs in the politics of digital transformation,” Review of International Political Economy 29, no. 4 (2022), 1211-1236.

“Germany after the social democratic century: The political economy of imbalance,” German Politics 29, no. 3 (2020), 295-316. [with Tobias Schulze-Cleven]

“Unlikely activists: Building worker power under liberalization,” Socio-Economic Review 17, no. 3 (2019), 573-602. (pdf)

“Macune’s monopoly: Economic law and the legacy of populism,” Studies in American Political Development 28 (April 2014), 80-106. (pdf)

Selected Commentary

“Organizing tech workers and recoding power: Interview with Sidney Rothstein.” DigiLabour. September 9, 2022. (Também em português)

“Recovering more than profits.” Blog post for the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University. May 17, 2022.

“From shared commitment to shared strategy: Encouraging employer investment in workers’ skills.” Blog post for the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University. May 8, 2018.

“Zeit für mehr Mitsprache: Arbeitnehmerrechte und die digitale Transformation.” WZB-Mitteillungen, Heft 159, März 2018, 10-12.

“Including workers’ voices in the digital transformation.” Blog post for the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University. November 15, 2017.