Random Variable

On Wednesday 18 March, the governors of Birkbeck College, University of London unanimously agreed to adopt the full GLA London Living Wage for all contracted staff. This ends a long campaign by Unison, joined by the Students Union, UCU and Unite.

Our campaign was supported by John McDonnell MP, sci-fi author China Mieville,  and director Ken Loach.

By March 2009, it was untenable that the college could continue not to adopt the Living Wage, and the debate turned to which form. Birkbeck’s Finance and General Purposes Committee decided to recommend the lower 2006 IPPR rate of £6.50. This is despite the fact that the IPPR itself pays its cleaning staff the Living Wage. A counter-proposal, developed by Unison, Unite, UCU and the Student Union outlined the necessity of paying a living wage.

This victory marks the triumph of an alliance of unions striving to create a better workplace for all.

In addition, the Students Union, recently reformed as a charity, abolishing the position of a president, and electing five sabbatical trustees, improving representation and campaign efforts were key in this victory. Rob Park and Tami Peterson, student governors were instrumental in Wednesday’s result. Our student union is a reminder to other student unions that the current round of governance reviews, that threaten to strip the voice of students is harmful to the life of universities.

However, Birkbeck cannot yet claim to be a Living Wage campus. The University of London Union (ULU) manage the George Birkbeck Bar on behalf of the college and SU, and have not yet adopted the Living Wage. This will be the next key battleground for the Birkbeck Living Wage Campaign.

ULU should be a central hub for the ongoing success of the campaign across all London colleges, and Birkbeck intends to lead the way. We call on all Student Unions to adopt Living Wage as a first step to seeing our colleges become ethical employers.

To get into the spirit of blogging again, perhaps I should start writing about my courses this year. So, first off, it’s Democracy and Authoritarianism, taught by David Styan.

We just had the introductory lecture, but next week we’re looking at military coups and will be talking about legitmacy for authoritarian regimes in the seminar.

My initial thoughts, without even bothering to do a cursory literature review:

In addition to the three types of legitimacy given by Weber [1], I’ve been thinking about a further three types of legitimacy for authoritarian regimes; goal-oriented, performance, and electoral.

Now, it would seem that these types of legitimacy are at least conditioned by the times, or in other words, are more timeless than Weber’s three types.

You might want to term this ideology, and leave it at that. However, you might want to consider some of the modern work on institutional norms. In particular, the work of Dimaggio and Powell [2]. Their claim is that under conditions of environmental uncertainty, competing firms start to mimic one another. I think this is the theoretical basis of Spruyt’s work on the sovereign state [3], but how would it apply in the context of authoritarian states. How about this scenario?

1. Country gains independence after colonialism, and inherits weak civil society.
2. Elites tasked with state-building under severe environmental uncertainty: Cold war, economic catching up with colonial nation-states, fear of international military action.
3. Just a few states (maybe even one or two) choosing authoritarianism might kick off isomorphism across a whole group of states.

What are the effects of theorising the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes in this way? It minimises the role of host population culture. However, not to say that elites can’t draw upon cultural repertoires to create organisational norms. It can also lead to regional organisational cultures through mimetic isomorphism (organisations copying each other).

This could part-way explain why goal and performance legitimated authoritarianism exists, but electoral legitimacy is even odder. Why hold elections when you’re going to rule with an iron fist anyway? Clearly an example of ritualistic behaviour, no? Let’s try Meyer and Rowan [4]. They believe that ceremonial behaviour is the effect of rigid organisational formal structure. However, what organisations do to remain effective, is to decouple formal structure from informal behaviour. They then retain legitimacy whilst operating efficiently (on their own terms).

Conclusion:

I am orgBorg.

1. Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (Fortress Press, 1965). 

2. Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (April 1983): 147-160.

3. H. Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An analysis of systems change (Princeton University Press, 1994). 

4. J. W. Meyer and B. Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977): 340.