Platform Politics : Corporate Power, Grassroots Movements and the Sharing Economy / Luke Yates

Front Cover -- Platform Politics: Corporate Power, Grassroots Movements and the Sharing Economy -- Copyright information -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introducing Platform Politics -- What forms does platform politics take? -- How can we understand platform politics? -- Organisation of chapters and how to read this book -- 2 Contested Stories of Platform Capitalism: Crisis, Legitimacy and Platform Rhetoric -- The Sharing Economy reflects the crisis -- The rise and fall of the Sharing Economy category -- Platforms as disruption and avatars of progress: technological determinism and platform possibility -- The Sharing Economy phrasebook: redefining and 'democratising' work, corporations, democracy -- Conflict, struggle, contingency: platform politics as an open struggle -- From platform rhetoric to regulatory struggle -- 3 Trajectories of Struggle around Lean Platforms: Making Sense of Change -- The corporate political activity of lean platforms in context -- Incursion, expansion, habituation: the basis of platform struggle -- Politicisation, framing and mobilisation: how platforms are problematised and how they respond -- Inhibiting enforcement: non-cooperation, withholding data, stalling and venue-shifting -- Platform power so far - and the gaps -- 4 The Practices of Platform Power: A Typology -- How new is platform power? -- Temporary mobilisation: coordinating short-term and shallow political engagement -- Curated storytelling: selecting, editing and rehearsing user 'stories' for lobbying -- Front groups: third party activist entities created, resourced and coordinated by companies -- Grassroots alliances: borrowing and co-opting the legitimacy of existing civil society organisations -- Some implications of platform power -- Rethinking platform power -- 5 Manufacturing a Movement: Platform Power at Airbnb.

Introducing the Airbnb Citizen -- Who joins Airbnb's mobilisation initiatives? Recruitment, selection and exclusion -- Searching for the right landlords -- The 'three date model' for activist recruitment -- How is Airbnb affiliated with its landlord activists? Resources, support and independence -- Redefining independence -- Tensions in platform power for platform workers -- Rebranding, outsourcing, obfuscating -- 6 The Futures of Platform Politics -- Three arguments about platform politics -- Corporate power, civil society and corporate grassroots lobbying -- Platform possibility -- Notes -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- References -- Index.

The platform economy, powered by companies like Airbnb, Uber and Deliveroo, promised to revolutionize the way we work and live. But what are the actual benefits to our society and economy? This book interrogates the 'sharing economy', showing how platform capitalism is not only shaped by business decisions, but is a result of struggles involving social movements, consumer politics and state interventions. It focuses in particular on the controversial tactics used by platform giants to avoid regulation. Drawing on cutting-edge research and analysis, this book provides a critical overview of this important topic, and imagines the different possible futures of the platform economy.