Sidney Rothstein
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sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Sidney Rothstein
@sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
1K followers 1.8K following 130 posts
Political scientist. Author of 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 (http://tinyurl.com/RePwr). Tech, labor politics, curiosities of capitalism.
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sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
And if you’re interested in dependent development, you’ll love the recent special issue published by @compchange.bsky.social (and guest edited by @aritassinari.bsky.social, @fbulfone.bsky.social, and Aldo Madariaga)

doi.org/10.1177/1024...

13/n
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
… because Big Tech can revoke support whenever their “clients” even think about threatening Big Tech’s interests.

(See the case of the EDRi)
www.ft.com/content/7427...

9/n
"But Joe McNamee, director of European Digital Rights (EDRi), a group that promotes tighter privacy rules, disputes that they have been able to muster the same firepower as US tech groups. Mr. McNamee occupies a unique position. EDRi used to be supported by Google when it campaigned for net neutrality. But when his group started lobbying on tougher privacy rights, it lost Google's financial backing."
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
In short, the Big Tech/startup relationship resembles the asymmetric reciprocity characterizing that between patron and client

5/n
GIF of the godfather saying, "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse."
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Have you noticed the recent wave of startup policies?

See: Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand... also in the historical core: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain – and more!

2/n
List of countries and their recent startup laws 1/2 List of countries and their recent startup laws 2/2
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Out now in Competition & Change
@compchange.bsky.social

“Dependent development in digital
capitalism: The politics of startup
policies in the new periphery”

@journals.sagepub.com
#polisky
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

1/n
first page of "Dependent development in digital capitalism: The politics of startup policies in the new periphery." abstract: As digital technology’s economic importance increases, policymakers pivot to supporting startups – new, small, high-risk firms that produce technological innovation. Tracing the passage of startup policies in Brazil and Spain between 2014 – 2022, this article argues that startup policies do little to reduce peripheral countries’ dependence on the core. In each case, startups advocated for these policies by relying on financial and organizational resources from the giant US-based technology firms known as “Big Tech.” The article makes three contributions to the framework of dependent development. First, it reinforces existing observations that dependence on Big Tech extends beyond the Global South. Second, it revives political analysis of dependency, exploring the political conditions for economic development in the periphery. Lastly, it shows how startups’ political dependence on Big Tech implies important limits on startups’ ability to lead peripheral economies out of dependence on the core.
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
The analysis also extends research by @robertdorschel.bsky.social on labor politics in the tech sector

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

11/n
April 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
This analysis extends very insightful research by @vni.bsky.social on how tech workers have built solidarity with gig workers in Berlin

edoc.hu-berlin.de/bitstream/ha...

10/n
April 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Also, while immigrants are central to many sectors of the US economy, their role in tech is absolutely essential. From 2000 - 2014, *more than 70%* of tech workers in Silicon Valley were foreign born.

9/n
April 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
I find that high-wage tech workers built solidarity with the broader working class by using tech's specific discourse to expand their ethical commitments across three structural obstacles -- status, occupation, and firm

5/n
April 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
To what extent can tech workers mobilize as part of the broader working class?

This is the question I take up in my new paper "Solidarity across the platform: mobilizing high-wage and low-wage workers in the tech sector" -- just out in Work in the Global Economy

1/n
screenshot of first page of article
April 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Find me an occupation with better propaganda than paleontology
drawing from kids book of paleontologists marching into the field. text says "bones. bones. we look for bones." drawing from kids book of paleontologists assembling t rex skeleton. text says "we put the teeth in the head bones and the head bones on the neck bones."
January 16, 2025 at 12:45 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
"(Tusk)"
Speech by President António Costa at the official opening of the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union I would like to thank you, dear Donald (Tusk), for the invitation to speak here today. It is a great honour for me to be in Warsaw at the launch of the Polish Presidency.
January 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
🚨Job alert 🚨

Williams College seeks a VAP in Political Science (AY 2024 - 2025)

Focus: comparative politics, especially Africa/East Asia, but we're particularly interested in candidates who will excel at teaching Intro to Comparative

Interfolio link below 👇

Happy to answer any Qs!
red and blue flowers in grass
January 6, 2025 at 2:59 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
CfA for one of the most exciting conferences I've seen:

**Labor and the Crisis of Democracy Conference at CUNY SLU**

See below for link
Call for Abstracts Labor and the Crisis of Democracy Conference at CUNY SLU, May 8-9, 2025 Abstracts Due February 1, 2025 The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies will be hosting a two-day conference, May 8-9, 2025, on labor and the crisis of democracy. The conference will be held in person at CUNY SLU, 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY. The conference will include: Presentations from academics and practitioners on topics such as what is driving union members to support the far right in the US and other countries; analyses of experiments that unions or working-class organizations have undertaken to address the rising support for authoritarianism in the labor movement; etc. See the Call for Papers for more topics. Sessions for labor leaders, labor educators, organizers, etc. to discuss best practices and how to move labor into the center of the fight to defend and expand democracy. Please submit abstracts (up to 500 words) here by February 1, 2025.
January 5, 2025 at 5:52 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Corporate Kantians
Label on a food product that says “bpa non-intent”
December 27, 2024 at 4:57 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Inflation bug at the money tree again
Houseplant (money tree) with some chomps out of a leaf by an insect
December 11, 2024 at 8:17 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Natural sciences: Oh you silly social scientists, your ridiculous "methods" can't capture anything precise enough to be true about the world

Also natural sciences: Look at our paradigm-shattering findings from our state-of-the art $10 billion instrument
two pictures of pixels, the second slightly less blurry than the first
December 9, 2024 at 3:04 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
I wish all google searches turned up the person you're looking for like they do Macron, like hi it's me!
screenshot of a google search for Macron, first image is of him making eye contact and waving
December 2, 2024 at 7:36 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
And wow the circa 2012 internet was just wonderful
screenshot of a headline about an app "rapt.fm" that lets people rap battle with anyone on the internet
November 27, 2024 at 9:29 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Never seen Internet Archive do a site like they did TechCrunch. Chapeau!
screenshot of internet archive having massively cataloged tech crunch -- 348,751 times between 2005 - 2024!
November 27, 2024 at 9:26 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Crazy how Danish Marxism got bigger than the country’s whole economy
Graph of Denmarks gdp being overtaken by another line in 2023
November 17, 2024 at 7:55 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
What’s up to all the literally minded folks out there observing the moment
November 10, 2024 at 1:24 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Second labor action, first strike

Solidarity with the workers of the MASS MoCA Union, on strike for better pay and conditions

Contribute to the strike fund here givebutter.com/1Ik3ZG
Baby holding a UAW sign on the picket line
March 7, 2024 at 8:08 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
The line-up for the APSA Comparative Labor Politics Workshop tomorrow (3/8) is ✨stellar✨

H/t @biffpm.bsky.social & @dannydaneri.bsky.social for organizing some of the finest and freshest research on labor politics

Please join us for a session or for the day!
(DM for Zoom link)

#polisky
screenshot of workshop program -- please DM for PDF screenshot of workshop program -- please DM for PDF
March 7, 2024 at 4:02 PM
sidneyrothstein.bsky.social
Shout out to @eu-eurostat-mirror.bsky.social for making my current research project less Eurocentric

#polisky
screenshot of the impossibility of logging into eurostat for data
March 5, 2024 at 2:01 PM