The theoretical contribution synthesises dependency theory's explanation of why Southern states face specific constraints with autonomist Marxism's working-class primacy.

Drawing on archival research in Tunis and labour force data, I trace how the Tunisian state decomposed an unruly working class by implementing policies designed to encourage women to enter the light manufacturing labour force. These were designed to fracture the previous working class composition.

This paper asks: why do Souther states consistently prioritise international capital over domestic workers? Using Tunisia's transition to neoliberalism in the 1980s, I show how states in periphery strategically reshape their labour force to meet external -- rather than internal -- demands.

🧵My new paper "State Strategies and Gendered Labour: Neoliberalism's Impact on Tunisia's Working Class Composition" is now out in Third World Quarterly. It builds on my earlier state theory work, adding a crucial dimension: how dependency shapes state action in the South
doi.org/10.1080/0143...

This paper synthesises these views, along with the Autonomy of Migration approach to understanding migrants, and argues that a theory of the state focused on the working class, rather than capital, is important for understanding the world today.

This is done through actions like limiting immigration, promoting certain forms of education, providing (or not providing) support for social reproduction, and incentivising specific types of foreign direct investment.

But Negri and Dalla Costa have more to say about this. They both argue that the state can play an important role in creating a new technical composition of the working class and decomposing a previous version.

This is the autonomist Marxist conceptualisation of class decomposition. But again, this doesn't quite work in the global South -- oftentimes, workers who struggle against a foreign employer are more likely to find their factory gone and the foreign capital to have left the country.

This paradox led me to autonomist Marxist ideas of the state, specifically Toni Negri and Mariarosa Dalla Costa. They both argue that when workers struggle against capital or the state, that iteration of the working class will be destroyed by advances in production technology or organisation.

This is because most Marxist state theory doesn't work in contexts of late or dependent development, where there is little domestic capital and states rely on FDI to create jobs.

This paper emerged from my PhD fieldwork in Tunisia, where I kept running into the question of why postcolonial states in the global South continue to prioritise international capital over workers in their own country. I couldn't find a clear answer in most of the literature.

Excited that my first academic paper has been published in Critical Sociology. It contributes to some of the current discussions in Marxist state theory and attempts to revive the workerist tradition as its own clear and distinct version of state theory. You can read it here: doi.org/10.1177/0896...