Resisting Authoritarianism: What Can be Done By the Labor Movement?

Authoritarianism has recently risen again all over the world. New “authoritarian states” seem to stem from the process of globalization.

On the one hand, in the Global North, while a number of immigrant workers have flowed into many countries, which virtually means that the strength of the state to control the boarder has weakened, the state has appeared to be restrengthened and to execute nativist activities to detain and deport undocumented immigrant workers. For example, the Trump administration in the United States has implemented these activities since his inauguration in 2025, and some countries in the European Union have also had allowed the extreme Right to rise and try to carry out nativist policies. On the other hand, in the Global South, the labor movement has been repressed ever since in many countries for the purpose of tempting the relocation of transnational corporations. Capitalist industrialization in the Global South with the process of globalization can be juxtaposed with the rise of state power in these societies.

If these processes can be regarded as the rise of authoritarianism, what can the labor movement practice against it? This session calls for papers addressing various topics on this issue. For example, what background is authoritarianism derived from? How has the labor movement been repressed? What kind of resistances can the labor movement implement? What direction should the labor movement go in?

This session welcomes diverse papers addressing these issues in the Global North and South theoretically and empirically.