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It has been argued that the workplace and the labor market in general, by processes of education, mobility and competition, have become the main forces behind the individualization and atomization in societies and in people’s lives. This paper inquires into the tensions between solidarity, identity, and individualism among workers in their efforts to organize collective struggles to improve their workplaces and their lives. Drawing on the dilemmas of increased diversity in the new workplace, the paper delineates three models of organized labor: (1) The Universalist-Individualist model of organized labor, peaking at the New Deal crisis and embedded in National Labor Relations Act, as an attempt to establish universal solidarity, which suppressed differences and presented a unified worker voice; (2) The Separatist model, which emerges as a reaction to intragroup exclusion and involves fragmentation of workers into identity groups, each representing the interests of its members; (3) The Coalitionist-Altruist model, envisioned in the paper as a middle ground between solidarity and self-interest, through interrelated moves: a move from totalizing universal solidarity to coalitionist solidarity through continuous dialogue and “rotation of centers” and a move from rights-based identity politics and the dominance of employment antidiscrimination claims to a fuller substantive theory for social reform.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, several prominent feminist legal scholars made a case for “difference feminism.” Inspired by psychologist Carol Gilligan’s classic text, In a Different Voice, these scholars argued that social relationships, caring, and the emotions should be recognized as important to jurisprudence and legal regulation. Today, difference feminism is no longer a dominant movement within legal scholarship, but reformers are bringing “mindfulness,” “emotional intelligence,” and attention to relationships into law and business – a development dubbed “therapy culture” by its critics. This essay describes some of the manifestations of therapy culture in law and argues for more feminist engagement.

As social movements engage in transnational legal processes, they have articulated innovative rights claims outside the nation-state frame. This chapter analyzes emerging practices of legal mobilization in response to global governance through a case study of the “right to food sovereignty.” The claim of food sovereignty has been mobilized transnationally by small-scale food producers, food-chain workers, and the food insecure to oppose the liberalization of food and agriculture. The author analyzes the formation of this claim in relation to the rise of a “network imaginary” of global governance. By drawing on ethnographic research, the author shows how activists have internalized this imaginary within their claims and practices of legal mobilization. In doing so, the author argues, transnational food sovereignty activists co-constitute global food governance from below. Ultimately, the development of these practices in response to shifting forms of transnational legality reflects the enduring, mutually constitutive relationship between law and social movements on a global scale.

In this concluding chapter, we discuss insights and reflections from our invited contributions on the COVID-19 pandemic and derive areas of meaningful future research to advance the global leadership domain. Specifically, we call for (1) strengthening the link of the global leadership domain with related research fields, (2) expanding our view on what are necessary global leadership competencies, (3) moving beyond individual global leadership toward a more collective and collaborative understanding of the phenomenon, (4) further enhancing the growing field of responsible global leadership, (5) examining the various competing tensions that global leaders need to balance, and (6) engaging in greater reflexivity among global leadership scholars ourselves.