What is it about?
Students protest tuitions. Perhaps more so than ever. The photos from the protests in Chile, Canada, and South Africa come to mind quickly. Then there are less globally covered student protests in Germany and Turkey. What makes these student protests so significant? ”, I highlight the importance of alliances between students and the organized labor (against tuitions in public universities) in reminding the social democratic parties of their redistributive commitments. I present two examples of this alliance, emerging from the quite different political contexts of Germany and Turkey.
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Why is it important?
In Germany, student movements failed to block the introduction of tuitions in 2006. However, in 2008-2011, students managed to get tuitions scrapped under electoral pressure. In Turkey, student movements had been protesting tuition fees for a quarter of a century before an alliance with labor gained the support of social democrats in 2011. These examples suggest that social movement – organized labor alliances may be effective in shifting social democratic politics in a variety of policy areas that are vulnerable to budget cuts.
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This page is a summary of: Student protests and organised labour: Developing a research agenda for mobilisation in late neoliberalism, Current Sociology, September 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0011392119865768.
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