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Prof Ralph Darlington's Outputs (36)

Author’s response to “Labor History Symposium: Ralph Darlington, Labour Revolt in Britain, 1910-1914” (2024)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (in press). Author’s response to “Labor History Symposium: Ralph Darlington, Labour Revolt in Britain, 1910-1914”. Labor History, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656x.2024.2313365

I’m very grateful to each of the three commentators for providing some insightful comments, as well as critical observations, on my Labour Revolt in Britain 1910–14. My response considers each in turn, hopefully further contributing to our understand... Read More about Author’s response to “Labor History Symposium: Ralph Darlington, Labour Revolt in Britain, 1910-1914”.

The Manchester and Salford Strike Wave of Summer 1911 (2023)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2023). The Manchester and Salford Strike Wave of Summer 1911. #Journal not on list, 44-52

If the ‘Labour Revolt’ that swept Britain in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War between 1910 and 1914 was one of the most dramatic and violent explosions of industrial militancy and social conflict the country has ever experi... Read More about The Manchester and Salford Strike Wave of Summer 1911.

Working Class Women’s Active Participation in the 1910-14 British Labour Revolt (2023)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2023). Working Class Women’s Active Participation in the 1910-14 British Labour Revolt. Labour History Review, 1(11), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8384482

The ‘Labour Revolt’ that swept Britain in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War between 1910 and 1914 was one of the most sustained, dramatic and violent explosions of industrial militancy and associated social conflict the coun... Read More about Working Class Women’s Active Participation in the 1910-14 British Labour Revolt.

Strikers versus scabs: violence in the 1910-1914 British labour revolt (2022)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2022). Strikers versus scabs: violence in the 1910-1914 British labour revolt. Labor History, 63(3), 332-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656x.2022.2103103

Over the last 200 years of British labour history there have been frequent examples of assertive, aggressive and sometimes violent mass picketing aimed at stopping non-striking scab or so-called ‘blackleg’ labour [sic]. Yet remarkably little detailed... Read More about Strikers versus scabs: violence in the 1910-1914 British labour revolt.

The pre-First World War British women’s suffrage revolt and labour unrest : never the twain shall meet? (2020)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2020). The pre-First World War British women’s suffrage revolt and labour unrest : never the twain shall meet?. Labor History, 61(5-6), 466-485. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656x.2020.1836612

During the years immediately preceding the First World War Britain experienced mass social unrest on a scale not seen since the early nineteenth century. Despite their distinctive priorities of gender and class, respectively, both the women’s suffrag... Read More about The pre-First World War British women’s suffrage revolt and labour unrest : never the twain shall meet?.

The role of the TUC in significant industrial disputes : an historical critical overview (2019)
Journal Article
Darlington, R., & Mustchin, S. (2019). The role of the TUC in significant industrial disputes : an historical critical overview. Labor History, 60(6), 626-645. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656x.2019.1624698

Historically the British Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) role in a significant number of major industrial disputes has been subject to both accusations of ‘betrayals’ and ‘sell-outs’ as well as more sympathetic accounts which emphasise the constraints... Read More about The role of the TUC in significant industrial disputes : an historical critical overview.

The leadership component of Kelly’s Mobilisation Theory : contribution, tensions, limitations and further development (2018)
Journal Article
contribution, tensions, limitations and further development. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 39(4), 617-638. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X18777609

This reassessment of Kelly’s analysis of the relationship of activist leadership to collective action within the overall jigsaw of mobilisation theory draws on social movement literature, studies by industrial relations scholars utilising aspects of... Read More about The leadership component of Kelly’s Mobilisation Theory : contribution, tensions, limitations and further development.

British labour movement solidarity in the 1913-14 Dublin Lockout (2016)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2016). British labour movement solidarity in the 1913-14 Dublin Lockout. Labor History, 57(4), 504-525. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2016.1239872

While most accounts of the Dublin Lockout of 1913-14 consider it primarily as an event in Irish history, it was also one of the most important struggles in twentieth century British history. It was influenced by, and was an integral part of the great... Read More about British labour movement solidarity in the 1913-14 Dublin Lockout.

An alterfactual methodological approach to labour history : the case of the British miners' strike 1984-5 (2014)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2014). An alterfactual methodological approach to labour history : the case of the British miners' strike 1984-5. Labor History, 55(2), https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2014.884862

In recent years, a small number of the so-called ‘counterfactual’ or ‘what-if’ historical books, which ask us to imagine what would have happened if events in the past had turned out differently than they did, have been published. They have stimulate... Read More about An alterfactual methodological approach to labour history : the case of the British miners' strike 1984-5.

Strike waves, union growth and the rank-and-file/bureaucracy interplay : Britain 1889-1890, 1910-1913 and 1919-1920 (2014)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2014). Strike waves, union growth and the rank-and-file/bureaucracy interplay : Britain 1889-1890, 1910-1913 and 1919-1920. Labor History, 55(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2013.871476

Gerald Friedman's Reigniting the Labor Movement was a highly ambitious, unashamedly partisan, historical and transnational comparative analysis of the rise and demise of the labour movement, which identified the way in which rank-and-file workers' sp... Read More about Strike waves, union growth and the rank-and-file/bureaucracy interplay : Britain 1889-1890, 1910-1913 and 1919-1920.

Partisan, scholarly and active: for an organic public sociology of work and the case of critical labour studies (2013)
Journal Article
Brook, P., & Darlington, R. (2013). Partisan, scholarly and active: for an organic public sociology of work and the case of critical labour studies. Work, Employment and Society, 27(2), 232-243

Despite a thriving tradition of critical scholarship in UK-based sociology of work, Burawoy’s call for a partisan organic public sociology that is part of ‘a social movement beyond the academy’ and Bourdieu’s plea for committed scholarship in the ser... Read More about Partisan, scholarly and active: for an organic public sociology of work and the case of critical labour studies.

Partisan, scholarly and active : arguments for an organic public sociology of work (2013)
Journal Article
Brook, P., & Darlington, R. (2013). Partisan, scholarly and active : arguments for an organic public sociology of work. Work, Employment and Society, 27(2), 232-243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017012461838

Despite a thriving tradition of critical scholarship in UK-based sociology of work, Burawoy’s call for a partisan organic public sociology that is part of ‘a social movement beyond the academy’ and Bourdieu’s plea for committed scholarship in the ser... Read More about Partisan, scholarly and active : arguments for an organic public sociology of work.

Syndicalism and strikes, leadership and influence: Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain and the United States (2013)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2013). Syndicalism and strikes, leadership and influence: Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain and the United States. International Labor and Working-Class History, 83(Spring), 37-53. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547913000136

The explosion of industrial and political militancy that swept the world during the early years of the twentieth century gave the revolutionary syndicalist movement a prominence and notoriety it would not otherwise have possessed, while at the same t... Read More about Syndicalism and strikes, leadership and influence: Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain and the United States.

Objective but not detached: Partisanship in industrial relations research’ (2013)
Journal Article
Darlington, R., & Dobson, J. (2013). Objective but not detached: Partisanship in industrial relations research’. Capital and Class, 37(2), 285-297. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816813489936

This article considers whether industrial relations (IR) research is objective, impartial or value-free, and argues that many IR academics in Britain have tended to start from a social-democratic premise which makes them relatively more sympathetic t... Read More about Objective but not detached: Partisanship in industrial relations research’.

Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War (2012)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2012). Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War. Labor History, 53(4), 517-539. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2012.731834

It has been argued that support for the First World War by the important French syndicalist organisation, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) has tended to obscure the fact that other national syndicalist organisations remained faithful to th... Read More about Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War.

Radical political unionism in France and Britain : a comparative study of SUD-Rail and the RMT (2012)
Journal Article
Connolly, H., & Darlington, R. (2012). Radical political unionism in France and Britain : a comparative study of SUD-Rail and the RMT. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 18(3), 235-250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959680112452693

Arguably the problem with many recent pessimistic academic assessments of the fortunes of, and prospects for, the revival of European trade unionism is that they fail to adequately capture evidence of continuing union resilience and combativity in ce... Read More about Radical political unionism in France and Britain : a comparative study of SUD-Rail and the RMT.

A reappraisal of the rank-and-file/bureaucracy debate (2012)
Journal Article
Darlington, R., & Upchurch, M. (2012). A reappraisal of the rank-and-file/bureaucracy debate. Capital and Class, 36(1), 77-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816811430369

This paper celebrates some of the considerable strengths of Richard Hyman’s 1970s/early 1980s analysis of trade unionism in general and bureaucracy specifically, and reapplies it to more recent developments within British trade unionism, while at the... Read More about A reappraisal of the rank-and-file/bureaucracy debate.

The interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity (2012)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2012). The interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity. Employee Relations, 34(5), 518-533. https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451211248523

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to build on the insights of mobilisation theory to examine the interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity. It proposes to do so by investigating the 2007 36-hour strike undertaken by 2,300 eng... Read More about The interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity.

The state of workplace union reps organisation in Britain today (2010)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2010). The state of workplace union reps organisation in Britain today. Capital and Class, 34(201), 126-135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816809353502

This article provides a brief evaluation of the state of workplace union reps’ organization in Britain as we approach the second decade of the 2000s. It documents the severe weakening of workplace union organization over the last 25 years, which is r... Read More about The state of workplace union reps organisation in Britain today.

Syndicalism and the influence of anarchism in France, Italy and Spain (2009)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2009). Syndicalism and the influence of anarchism in France, Italy and Spain. Anarchist Studies, 17(2), 29-54

Following the Leninist line, a commonly held assumption is that anarchism as a revolutionary movement tends to emerge in politically, socially and economically underdeveloped regions and that its appeal lies with the economically marginalised lumpenp... Read More about Syndicalism and the influence of anarchism in France, Italy and Spain.

The agitator “theory” of strikes re-evaluated (2006)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2006). The agitator “theory” of strikes re-evaluated. Labor History, 47(4), 485-509. https://doi.org/10.1080/00236560600899024

This article re-evaluates the so-called 'agitator theory' of strikes, the popular (often media-induced) notion that industrial militancy is the work of a few hard-core militant shop stewards and/or left-wing political 'agitators.' It suggests that wh... Read More about The agitator “theory” of strikes re-evaluated.

Revolutionary syndicalist opposition to the First World War: An international comparative reassessment (2006)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2006). Revolutionary syndicalist opposition to the First World War: An international comparative reassessment. Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire (Imprimé), 12(4), 983-1003

It has been argued that support for the First World War by the important French syndicalist organisation, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) has tended to obscure the fact that other national syndicalist organisations remained faithful to th... Read More about Revolutionary syndicalist opposition to the First World War: An international comparative reassessment.

Shop stewards’ leadership, left-wing activism and collective workplace union organisation (2002)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2002). Shop stewards’ leadership, left-wing activism and collective workplace union organisation. Capital and Class, 26(1), 95-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/030981680207600104

Providing an account of the dynamic interrelationship between shop steward leadership and membership interaction, Ralph Darlington focuses particular attention on the much-neglected crucial role that left-wing political activists can play in shaping... Read More about Shop stewards’ leadership, left-wing activism and collective workplace union organisation.

Union militancy and left-wing leadership on London underground (2001)
Journal Article
Darlington, R. (2001). Union militancy and left-wing leadership on London underground. Industrial Relations Journal, 32(1), 2-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2338.00180

The article provides evidence from case study research into trade union organisation and activity on the London Under-ground during the 1990s. It explores the extent to which left-wing political leadership influenced the collectivisation and mobilisa... Read More about Union militancy and left-wing leadership on London underground.