Villa, Tesla, Vovve: An Interpretative Examination of Varieties of Capitalism and Labor Conflict in Sweden
(2024) SGEM08 20241Department of Human Geography
- Abstract
- In the Fall of 2023, Sweden’s major autoworkers union (IF Metall) launched a strike against Tesla, a global manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs). Contentions have emerged in the discourses and rhetoric of both parties about the cultural compatibility of work cultures between the Nordic Model and the U.S-based EV multinational manufacturer. The decline of union involvement among the population of Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia through neoliberal reforms in recent years has given rise to contention over the modern Nordic model among firms and laborers. This literature seeks to examine the ideological battle raging between the two competing views of capitalist society by expanding the varieties of capitalism framework through a... (More)
- In the Fall of 2023, Sweden’s major autoworkers union (IF Metall) launched a strike against Tesla, a global manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs). Contentions have emerged in the discourses and rhetoric of both parties about the cultural compatibility of work cultures between the Nordic Model and the U.S-based EV multinational manufacturer. The decline of union involvement among the population of Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia through neoliberal reforms in recent years has given rise to contention over the modern Nordic model among firms and laborers. This literature seeks to examine the ideological battle raging between the two competing views of capitalist society by expanding the varieties of capitalism framework through a qualitative news media analysis and an integrative view of historically significant works in economic geography. An integrative theoretical review is employed examining past literature from Hall & Soskice, Doreen Massey, and John Harner to build towards building an expanded theory of varieties of capitalism more in line with Max Weber’s Interpretivism which was employed by Hall & Soskice in the development of their ideal types of capitalism. The empirical analysis here uses gathered news media articles from online news searches in Google to build a discoursal analysis of media narratives. Findings support that the strikes in Sweden indicate ideological conflict over the formulation of capitalist coordination in the State and that conflicts are the engines for disrupting established forms of capitalism and the genesis of new forms. In conjunction with the integrative review and in line with a critique of the VoC framework, holistic ideal types of capitalist coordination are constructed in relation to a real-world observable case (the Nordic model) to aid in furthering research construction into capitalist behavior, variety, and how reforms of the political economy are shaped through ideology and conflict. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9155804
- author
- Everetts, Jordan LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SGEM08 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Varieties of Capitalism, Spatial Divisions of Labor, Politics of Place, Labor, Conflict, Multinational, State, Coordination, Tesla, IF Metall, Scandinavia, Sweden, Qualitative News Media Analysis, Autoworkers, Strike, Unions, Institutions
- language
- English
- id
- 9155804
- date added to LUP
- 2024-06-03 08:10:42
- date last changed
- 2024-06-03 08:10:42
@misc{9155804,
abstract = {{In the Fall of 2023, Sweden’s major autoworkers union (IF Metall) launched a strike against Tesla, a global manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs). Contentions have emerged in the discourses and rhetoric of both parties about the cultural compatibility of work cultures between the Nordic Model and the U.S-based EV multinational manufacturer. The decline of union involvement among the population of Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia through neoliberal reforms in recent years has given rise to contention over the modern Nordic model among firms and laborers. This literature seeks to examine the ideological battle raging between the two competing views of capitalist society by expanding the varieties of capitalism framework through a qualitative news media analysis and an integrative view of historically significant works in economic geography. An integrative theoretical review is employed examining past literature from Hall & Soskice, Doreen Massey, and John Harner to build towards building an expanded theory of varieties of capitalism more in line with Max Weber’s Interpretivism which was employed by Hall & Soskice in the development of their ideal types of capitalism. The empirical analysis here uses gathered news media articles from online news searches in Google to build a discoursal analysis of media narratives. Findings support that the strikes in Sweden indicate ideological conflict over the formulation of capitalist coordination in the State and that conflicts are the engines for disrupting established forms of capitalism and the genesis of new forms. In conjunction with the integrative review and in line with a critique of the VoC framework, holistic ideal types of capitalist coordination are constructed in relation to a real-world observable case (the Nordic model) to aid in furthering research construction into capitalist behavior, variety, and how reforms of the political economy are shaped through ideology and conflict.}},
author = {{Everetts, Jordan}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Villa, Tesla, Vovve: An Interpretative Examination of Varieties of Capitalism and Labor Conflict in Sweden}},
year = {{2024}},
}