Stephen Bagwell

Happy first Sweater Weather day from Winnie.

It seems quite obvious to me that the slow, then sudden closing of the grindset-to-six-figures pipeline explains quite a bit of whatever crisis of whatever is afflicting the Culture right now.

This remains one of my favorite courses.

Now back to dog pics.

This is what she does when she wants to hang out on the porch even though it’s a heat index of 100+.

Something extra odd: this is true for labor rights *practices*, meaning whether people are actually capable of enjoying their rights, but also merely passing laws. The gap between laws and practice is large, though, so an “easy” way to reduce inequalities would be to enforce existing laws.

Really proud of this work with @skipmark.bsky.social , and the article it’s based on with Meridith LaVelle and Asia Parker, so I’m self promoting again. Strengthening collective labor rights reduces inequality- not just vertical inequality like the GINI but also inequality between ethnic groups.

A shout out to @aaup.org, the URI Adjunct faculty union, and the URI Professional Staff Association (PSA), a bargaining unit affiliated with the National Education Association of Rhode Island (NEARI).

You are almost always better off in a union, so join one, start one, or support one!

Americans favor labor unions over big business now more than ever This piece was also published on Medium. For decades, Americans were evenly divided in their relative support of labor unions and big business, but that’s no longer the case. Now, Americans are more l...

Promoting labor rights reduces inequality, narrows the racial wealth gap, and serves as a popular policy platform for politicians seeking to win elections. If you expand this to all labor rights, you have a political agenda that motivates a majority of diverse voters and strengthens democracy.

About CIRIGHTS The goal of the CIRIGHTS data project is to create numerical measures for every internationally recognized human right for all countries of the world. Human rights scores are necessary for understa…

We use CIRIGHTS data, which codes US State Department and @amnesty.org human rights reports to assign numerical scores for two dozen human rights. For this piece, we examined the rights to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. We looked at both protection in law and in practice.

Unions promote racial equity By now it is well known that unions are a key institution enforcing more equal outcomes by income class in the U.S. economy and that the policy-driven shrinkage of unionization has played a key role i...

Unions have an incentive to recruit all workers. As a result, they often help to promote racial inequality faster than other parts of society (they tend to be less racist). Where collective labor rights are strong, minorities can also unionize for themselves when they are shut out of other unions

Unions help reduce disparities and strengthen our democracy Unions improve wages and benefits for all workers, not just union members. They help reduce income inequality by making sure all Americans, and not just the wealthy elite, share in the benefits of the...

Unions, protected by collective labor rights, negotiate for higher wages, limit corporate power, and lobby for better working conditions for all workers. This is how we got the 40-hour workday, overtime pay, & restrictions on child labor. They also strengthen democracy and act as a check on power.

Union Rights and Inequalities - Human Rights Review Competing arguments surrounding the relationships between inequalities and labor rights have persisted over time. This paper explores whether labor rights increase or decrease two types of wage inequa...

Building on our scholarly work, we argue that collective labor rights reduce inequality by empowering workers: they reduce the cost of organizing unions, reduce the cost of collective bargaining, create a credible threat for non-union workers to unionize, and protect the right to strike

Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality A research team’s findings suggest that when workers are free to advocate for better wages and benefits for themselves, it also benefits society as a whole.

New piece in the @us.theconversation.com with @stephenmbagwell.bsky.social The protection of collective labor rights (right to unionize, strike, and bargain collectively) reduces income inequality between individuals (poor vs. rich) and between ethnic/racial groups (white versus Black).

Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality A research team’s findings suggest that when workers are free to advocate for better wages and benefits for themselves, it also benefits society as a whole.

The richest 1% of Americans now have 5x more wealth than the bottom 50%.

Meanwhile, 59% of Americans can't cover a $1000 emergency expense.

Strengthening collective labor rights may reduce economic inequality, according to political scientists.

Thank you!

Based on work published in Human Rights Review.

Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality A research team’s findings suggest that when workers are free to advocate for better wages and benefits for themselves, it also benefits society as a whole.

New post with @skipmark.bsky.social out at @theconversation.com

theconversation.com/strengthenin...

Apply to Pay It Forward at ISA Midwest Apply now to the Pay-it-Forward mentoring workshop held during the ISA Midwest Conference. This event is designed for female-identifying graduate students and junior faculty and offers them a chance t...

🚺 Calling all women-identifying grad students & jr faculty!
Join our Pay-it-Forward mentoring workshop at ISA-Midwest!
🗓️ Register by July 1
🍸 Thu reception | 🥗 Fri lunch + mentoring
Space limited! Details in your inbox or ask us!
Sign up: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🚨 Sunday Workshops at ISA-Midwest! 🚨
Two fantastic professional dev sessions on Nov 23:
🧠 VIRP w/ Patrick James (diagram your research!)
📊 Text-as-Data w/ Leah Windsor (turn words into numbers!)
Free w/ conf reg. Sign up by Aug 1 to be in the program!
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Of One’s Own Making: Leadership Legitimation Strategy and Human Rights - Stephen Bagwell, Matthew Rains, Meridith LaVelle, 2024 Why do states and their agents abuse citizens? Traditional explanations focus on contentious politics, the presence of institutions, and international pressures...

Domestic policy approaching it, too. (Pardon the self promotion)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sorry Anthony! Hope you are able to recover and enjoy the rest of your trip. Statistically, it’s very improbable it’ll happen again this trip.

Seeing a lot of discussion of what the War Powers Resolution does and does not permit. As always, the Congressional Research Service provides essential reading.

www.congress.gov/crs_external...

🇿🇼ZIMBABWE | The Standard covers HRMI's new human rights scores for #Zimbabwe:

www.thestandard.co.zw/news/article...

Figures showing Iranian enrichment before and after the JCPOA.

I think about this figure a lot.

St Louis and Indianapolis are two of the easiest and most convenient I’ve ever been through.

Check out the article for more!

In broader implications, there’s been an ongoing debate about whether (and/or how) democracies are failing or a growing trend in autocratization. Those leaders attack foundational democratic institutions, including those designed to protect human rights, which can look like democratic backsliding

Think leaders like Trump or Bolsanaro (who fit the data remarkably well), as two examples, who make claims that they alone can fix what ails a society, and abuse human rights.