Luke Elliott-Negri | Graduate Center of the City University of New York (original) (raw)

Papers by Luke Elliott-Negri

This study investigates the causal relationship between an under-studied emotion—hope—and online ... more This study investigates the causal relationship between an under-studied emotion—hope—and online action. We ask whether some emotions are more effective than others in driving a semi-behavioral outcome—clicking a hyperlink. Using an experimental design, we find that a recorded speech that has been “emotionally charged” with hope increases respondents’ willingness to seek information about a contentious social issue, immigrant rights. We argue that the hope charge is uniquely powerful, in part because it energizes both beneficiary constituents (BCs) and conscience constituents (CCs) of social movements, as well as those of broader publics. We suggest that hope is a quintessential bridging charge, linking beneficiary constituents to these other groups. Our study builds on important methodological trends in the developing field of survey experimentation: it uses audio recordings to convey emotional charges and embeds a semi-behavioral measure at the conclusion of an internet-based survey experiment. We argue that hope has been empirically submerged in the discipline, and, when used to charge social movement frames, has under-acknowledged mobilizing power.

Critical Sociology, Aug 30, 2020

Drawing on original survey and interview data on platform-based food delivery workers, we deploy ... more Drawing on original survey and interview data on platform-based food delivery workers, we deploy an intersectional lens to analyze the ways in which the white working-class women who predominate in this sector of the gig economy interpret their work experience. With a focus on the gender-class nexus, we explore the reasons why these workers, especially mothers and other caregivers, self-select into this sector. These include: scheduling flexibility, which facilitates balancing paid work and family care; the opportunity to use previously unpaid food shopping skills to generate income, a neoliberal form of "wages for housework"; and the emotional rewards of serving elderly and disabled customers who cannot easily shop for themselves. Although these workers embrace the traditional gender division of labor and normative femininity, at the same time they express strong class resentment of both the companies they work for and the class and gender entitlements of their most privileged customers.

Socius, 2019

Instacart, TaskRabbit, Mechanical Turk, Care.com, and others use cloud-based technology to "match... more Instacart, TaskRabbit, Mechanical Turk, Care.com, and others use cloud-based technology to "match" workers with consumers (Vallas 2019)-has produced a type of labor with contested status under U.S. employment law. The explosion of "platform capitalism" (Srnicek 2016) is part of a broader transition from standard employment protections toward "flexible" work arrangements, including contract, temporary, and part-time employment, in the United States and elsewhere since the 1970s (Beck 2000; Kalleberg and Vallas 2018; Summers 1998). Some commentators see possibilities for liberation in flexible work arrangements, since such workers can more freely choose their hours and reduce their commitments to single employers. A few go so far as to argue that the loosening of the bonds between workers and employers may make possible a world in which work is altogether less central to people's lives and life projects, allowing for new pursuits and new forms of solidarity (Beck 2000)-recuperating an older utopian vision (Marcuse 1964). In theory, workers engaged on platforms can choose when, where, and how much to work; and they can work for multiple platforms at once to reduce their dependence on any one, like the Uber driver who also drives for Lyft and Juno (Sundararajan 2016). Many labor scholars have argued, in contrast, that such "flexibility" is closely associated with precariousness

Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 14, 2022

What kind of tradeoffs do protest movements face in trying to change the world around them? Many ... more What kind of tradeoffs do protest movements face in trying to change the world around them? Many scholars have tried to figure out why some social movements have an impact and others do not. By looking inside movements at their component parts and recurrent strategic interactions, we show that they usually produce familiar packages of effects, including both gains and losses. We ask what kinds of tradeoffs and dilemmas these packages reflect, why a certain kind of gain is so often accompanied by a familiar kind of loss. We do this by examining not just the diverse players involved in politics and protest but also the many strategic arenas in which they maneuver. Success in one arena often entails a loss in another. We analyze six diverse cases from around the world: Seattle’s conflict over the $15-an-hour minimum wage; the establishment of participatory budgeting in New York City; a democratic insurgency inside the New York Transport Workers’ Union; a communist party’s struggle to gain votes and also protect citizen housing in Graz, Austria; the internal movement tensions that led to Hong Kong’s umbrella occupation; and Russia’s electoral reform movement embodied in Alexei Navalny. Gains and Losses looks at the details of politics, where individuals make decisions, negotiate with allies and opponents, suffer tradeoffs, and struggle with dilemmas. No social movement gets everything it wants, and some get nothing. In between, most attain complex packages of gains and losses.

Gains and Losses

Protest efforts occasionally succeed but more often fail; either way, they leave behind a number ... more Protest efforts occasionally succeed but more often fail; either way, they leave behind a number of impacts on both the players and the arenas involved. In looking for patterns in both unanticipated and anticipated gains and losses, and by concentrating on multiple microlevel interactions among players, we incorporate a range of strategic players (including subplayers within social movements but also their targets, authorities, and others), and we follow them across a series of strategic arenas. This chapter finds that their many gains and losses often appear in familiar packages that are linked to the strategic choices they make in response to other players. The chapter identifies six frequent packages: arena ownership, institutionalization, an electoral package, leverage across arenas, a radicalism package, and a personality package.

Gains and Losses, Apr 14, 2022

In electoral arenas, political personalities are crucial: they can run and win elections. Persona... more In electoral arenas, political personalities are crucial: they can run and win elections. Personalities are important to collective efforts beyond elections, too. They can become symbols of movements and proposals. Compound players struggle over how dominant and influential a particular personality should be. The hopes, risks, and outcomes that accompany decisions to rely on charismatic individuals represent a “personality package.” This chapter explores the gains and losses typical of the personality package, using the example of Alexei Navalny, a challenger to Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, and his participation in the mayoral elections in Moscow in 2013.

Gains and Losses, Apr 14, 2022

Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement gained fame when it occupied multiple parts of the city, including ... more Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement gained fame when it occupied multiple parts of the city, including around the Central Government Complex in Admiralty in September 2014. It was the product of nearly two years of organizing and negotiating between factions of the pro-democratic movement by a group called Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP). This chapter traces the complex interactions within the electoral reform movement during those two years, as well as interactions with government entities, in the months leading up to the occupation. The explicit dilemma was whether and how to initiate disruptive activities to put additional pressure on the authorities. The radical package that ensued yielded some benefits to movement players, but also devastating losses: greater media attention and a sense of urgency but also more state repression and the long-term collapse of the movement and the democracy it desired. The Occupy Trio tried to negotiate the naughty-or-nice dilemma by insisting that disruption was only a last resort, and a costly one to them personally.

Gains and Losses

A caucus of activist transit workers seeking to fight management chose to focus their efforts pri... more A caucus of activist transit workers seeking to fight management chose to focus their efforts primarily on ousting a perceived “do-nothing” union leadership. This chapter demonstrates some of the gains and losses intrinsic to the electoral package. As a commonly used arena, running candidates for office was easy for workers to understand, and it held the allure of a decisive victory leading to substantive changes in union policy. Yet means can turn into ends: winning an election and functioning in office after winning may be in tension with each other. The need to, “first, win” led to the creation of dubious alliances and, ultimately, turmoil within the compound player. Small gains and losses, strategic tradeoffs, dilemmas, and decisions—often intended to resolve short-term problems—shaped and altered what it meant to win. Even apparent gains come freighted with diverse consequences.

Gains and Losses

This chapter examines the crucial relationship between gains and losses across different arenas. ... more This chapter examines the crucial relationship between gains and losses across different arenas. The Communist Party of Austria in the country’s second-largest city of Graz benefited when it came to “own” the issue of housing advocacy. It leveraged its initial success in direct-help and protest arenas (more typically associated with social movements than political parties) and the arenas of legislation and government administration and policy, demonstrating the boomerang-effect package. However, entering many arenas has its own risks and costs. Entry into arenas controlled by others can turn out poorly, hurting rather than helping a player’s reputation. Time and other resources can be spread too thinly. Players don’t necessarily need to enter every arena; when to engage, and when not to, matters.

Gains and Losses

This chapter outlines a package of gains and losses linked to the institutionalization of movemen... more This chapter outlines a package of gains and losses linked to the institutionalization of movement-backed public policies. Activists often mobilize to advance policy goals or to democratize policymaking itself. But even when they achieve such goals, their task remains unfinished. They face further challenges in implementation and institutionalization, as they seek stability for newly won policies, programs, or reforms. When successful, they may gain valuable resources and security for their program. But they typically cede control to allies who may not fully share their goals, and decision-making moves into arenas that tend to contain unreceptive players. As a result, the integrity and impacts of their program may suffer. New York City’s participatory budgeting initiative illustrates these dynamics. The case reveals how strategic players experienced such tradeoffs as they pursued a major experiment in local democratic governance.

Gains and Losses, Apr 14, 2022

This chapter finds players who create new arenas rather than only using preexisting ones. In 2014... more This chapter finds players who create new arenas rather than only using preexisting ones. In 2014, Seattle was the first major American city to pass a $15-per-hour wage law. A set of diverse players—an avowed Socialist, the owner of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle tower, many representatives of the city’s labor movement, and a newly elected mayor—wrangled in a series of old and new arenas, each making gains and incurring losses along the way, before arriving at a legislative outcome. Arena creation comes with a particular package of gains and losses: increased control for the creating player on the one hand, but corresponding losses and risks—the alienation of excluded players and increased perception of responsibility in the broader public. Owning an arena means that a player is more likely to be blamed for its failures than to be credited with its successes.

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 2018

Journal of American History, 2015

Partecipazione e Conflitto, Nov 16, 2021

Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2021

Social movements never entirely win or lose, nor do they suddenly appear or disappear. Just as th... more Social movements never entirely win or lose, nor do they suddenly appear or disappear. Just as their component parts recombine and continue in other forms, so movements have dozens of impacts of various kinds. To make sense of this complexity we propose examining the outcomes of political interactions for a variety of players (including individuals) across a range of arenas. Given the acknowledged tradeoffs and dilemmas of collective action, we would expect packages of outcomes to appear together sometimes; for example, gains in street mobilization may lead to losses in the form of a damaged reputation or police repression. The first step to explaining such patterns is to identify and name them. We examine one of these outcome patterns, the arena-ownership package, through the case of Seattle's historic $15 per hour wage law passed in 2014, the first ever in a major U.S. city. The players who crafted the bill included an avowed Socialist, the owner of Seattle's iconic Space Needle tower, many representatives of the city's labor movement, and the newly elected Democratic Mayor Ed Murray. These diverse players moved through a series of complex arenas to arrive at the legislative outcome. In this case, we find players who create new Work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-Share alike 3.0 Italian License 2. Collective Action as Strategic Interaction and the Importance of Arena Creation This article relies on a "players and arenas" conceptual framework (

Critical Sociology, Aug 30, 2020

Socius, 2019

Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 14, 2022

Gains and Losses

Gains and Losses, Apr 14, 2022

Gains and Losses

Gains and Losses, Apr 14, 2022

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 2018

Journal of American History, 2015

Partecipazione e Conflitto, Nov 16, 2021

Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2021