Employment Changes and Their Impact on Local Government

普通人的政治行动通常以地方为基础，关注地方问题或地方对更高层次趋势的反应。政治行动主义的变化可以对公共服务的提供以及政府的形式和角色等问题产生重要影响。灵活就业，如兼职工作、下班工作、临时合同、自营职业和在家工作，可能会改变政治活动的模式，使工会和政党更难以确定政治行动的共同基础，并区分日益分化的工资和补偿结构。对政治行动主义的任何评价都关键取决于公民对地方政治机构开放性的看法；如果人们认为这些机构难以进入，政治活动就不太可能出现。因此，地方政治机构的性质和看法干预了公民身份的重组。该项目将研究伴随经济结构调整而来的灵活就业形式的增加如何影响公民的政治活动。它假设灵活的就业和工资水平、工作保障和时间可用性的变化导致对政治激进主义潜力的重新评估。在这一过程中，对地方政治结构的感知充当了一个中介变量。通过对家庭成员样本的访谈来重建他们的就业和政治历史，研究了行动主义的趋势。为了确定如何最好地评估经济结构调整和政治行动主义之间的关系，将采用三种访谈策略和备选方法技术。这项妇女研究计划补助金将有助于填补有关家庭工作经验变化、对地方政治机构看法变化和公民政治活动的经验知识方面的空白。这项研究将为有关重组、国家和公民身份的研究提供信息，并将促进我们对重组条件下地方民主结构的理解。

Political action by ordinary people is typically locally based, and it focuses on local issues or on local responses to higher level trends. Changes in political activism can have important consequences for issues such as public service delivery and the form and role of government. Flexible employment such as part-time work, off-shift work, temporary contracts, self- employment, and homeworking may change patterns of political activism by making it more difficult for unions and political parties to identify the common basis for political action and by differentiating increasingly divergent wage and compensation structures. Any evaluation of political activism depends critically on citizen perception of the openness of local political institutions; if these institutions are perceived as inaccessible, political activism would be less likely. Thus, the nature and perception of local political institutions intervenes in the restructuring of citizenship. This project will examine how political activism by citizens is affected by the increase in flexible employment forms that have accompanied economic restructuring. It hypothesizes that flexible employment and changes in wage levels, job security, and time availability lead to re-evaluations of the potential of political activism. In this process, perception of the local political structure acts as an intervening variable. Trends in activism are examined through interviews with a sample of household members to reconstruct their employment and political histories. Three interviewing strategies and alternative methodological techniques will be employed in order to determine how the relationship between economic restructuring and political activism can best be assessed. This Research Planning Grant for Women will help fill a void in empirical knowledge about changes in the work experiences of households, changes in the perceptions of local political institutions, and political activism on the part of citizens. This study will inform research related to restructuring, the state, and citizenship, and it will advance our understanding of the fabric of local democracy under conditions of restructuring.