Beyond the Plant Gates: Postwar Liberalism and Labor's Subnational Political Organization

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Professor Weir examined the postwar political development of American labor, exploring the tensions between labor's workplace-oriented union structure and its politically-oriented structure for public policy influence. Weir argues that even at the height of their power, liberal labor leaders had difficulty mobilizing union members as a progressive force in electoral politics.

Professor Weir's other books include Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988) (co-edited with Ann Shola Orloff and Theda Skocpol); Schooling for All: Class, Race and the Decline of the Democratic Ideal (New York: Basic Books, 1985) (with Ira Katznelson). Weir is also the coauthor of a textbook on American government We the People (New York: W.W. Norton:1997) (with Benjamin Ginsberg and Theodore Lowi). She is currently at work on a study of metropolitan inequalities and city-suburban politics in the United States. She is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Professor Weir's bio at the University of California, Berkeley.