Policy Preferences and Organizational Representation in the Informal Economy
P5-4
Presented by: Federico Fuchs
This paper seeks to bridge the gap between two strains of literature that propose alternative mechanisms of influence for low-income citizens under democratic politics: on the one hand, their electoral importance in large urban settings; on the other hand, their capacity for collective action.
I propose that both mechanisms coexist, and may even reinforce each other. Organizations indeed lobby on behalf of their members' interests vis-à-vis powerful allies and decision-makers, but collective action also exercises its influence in the opposite direction: members’ behaviour is changed by participating in organizations.
I analyse both mechanisms focusing on urban informal workers, an often relegated constituency that recent research has highlighted as especially prone to build pressure-group style organizations.
By doing this, I seek to make two contributions. First, I show that in truncated welfare states the least likely promoters of redistribution, informal workers, may support policies with a redistributive content if, in their experience, such policies are effectively accessible to them, especially if they are tied to mechanisms of incorporation for excluded groups. Second, linking the individual and the organizational level, I show that informal workers that participate in collective action are more likely to favour redistributive action by the state, particularly if their organizations provide diverse forms of direct support to individual demands.
I support this claim with evidence from an original survey conducted among street vendors in commercial areas in Mexico City, which includes a conjoint experiment on workers' policy preferences, and in-depth interviews conducted during 6 months of fieldwork.
I propose that both mechanisms coexist, and may even reinforce each other. Organizations indeed lobby on behalf of their members' interests vis-à-vis powerful allies and decision-makers, but collective action also exercises its influence in the opposite direction: members’ behaviour is changed by participating in organizations.
I analyse both mechanisms focusing on urban informal workers, an often relegated constituency that recent research has highlighted as especially prone to build pressure-group style organizations.
By doing this, I seek to make two contributions. First, I show that in truncated welfare states the least likely promoters of redistribution, informal workers, may support policies with a redistributive content if, in their experience, such policies are effectively accessible to them, especially if they are tied to mechanisms of incorporation for excluded groups. Second, linking the individual and the organizational level, I show that informal workers that participate in collective action are more likely to favour redistributive action by the state, particularly if their organizations provide diverse forms of direct support to individual demands.
I support this claim with evidence from an original survey conducted among street vendors in commercial areas in Mexico City, which includes a conjoint experiment on workers' policy preferences, and in-depth interviews conducted during 6 months of fieldwork.