Dan Clawson

Over and above his academic work, Clawson was a labor activist, member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and former president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors.[6] In addition to his union work, Clawson also served in leadership roles in numerous progressive organizations. Clawson was the former president of the Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ), an American organization founded to produce dialog among scholars, artists, and unions,[7][8] and a founding member of the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM), a grass-roots organization advocating for free higher education in the state of Massachusetts.[6]

Clawson's The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements was published in 2003. The book was the subject of two review symposiums, one in Critical Sociology[11] and a second in Labor History.[12] The Next Upsurge contributes to debates on the causes for the fall in labor union membership in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as strategies for revitalizing membership growth.[13] Clawson first argues that union membership in the United States has in the past expanded in momentary periods of accelerated growth, not incrementally, and often in tandem with other social movements. Clawson argues that part of the explanation for the decline of American organized labor was its failure to ally with one such moment of societal unrest manifested in the social movements of the 1960s, and that in order for labor unions to grow in membership again they must build solidarity with other contemporary progressive social movements. The Next Upsurge argues that to do this the American labor movement must reject business unionism and instead embrace social movement unionism in the form of greater rank and file membership control and prioritize social justice.[14]

• Clawson, Dan (2003). The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. ISBN 9781501722578. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctv3mtbnp.
• Clawson, Dan (1980). Bureaucracy and the Labor Process: The Transformation of U.S. Industry, 1860-1920. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 9780853455431.

• Clawson, Dan; Gerstel, Naomi (2014). Unequal Time: Gender, Class, and Family in Employment Schedules. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN 9781610448437.
• Clawson, Dan; Page, Max (2011). The Future of Higher Education. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138168923.
• Clawson, Dan; Neustadtl, Alan; Weller, Mark (1998). Dollars and Votes: How Business Campaign Contributions Subvert Democracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 9781566396264.
• Clawson, Dan; Neustadtl, Alan; Scott, Denise (1992). Money Talks: Corporate PACS and Political Influence. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 9780465026807.

• Clawson, Dan, ed. (1998). Required Reading: Sociology's Most Influential Books. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9781558491533.

• Kerrissey, Jasmine; Weinbaum, Eve; Hammonds, Clare; Juravich, Tom; Clawson, Dan, eds. (2020). Labor in the Time of Trump. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. ISBN 9781501746628.
• Clawson, Dan; Zussman, Robert; Misra, Joya; Gerstel, Naomi; Stokes, Randall; Anderton, Douglas L.; Burawoy, Michael, eds. (2007). Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-first Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520251380.
• Gerstel, Naomi; Clawson, Dan; Zussman, Robert, eds. (2002). Families at Work: Expanding the Boundaries. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 9780826513977.