Biography
Craig Borowiak received a B.A. in Philosophy from Carleton College and a Ph. D in Political Science from Duke University. He joined the Haverford political science faculty in fall 2004. Trained in political theory and political economy, his teaching and research interests focus on capitalism and post-capitalism, solidarity economies, globalization, democratic theory, the global political economy, transnational civil society, cosmopolitanism, and the history of political economic thought.
Education
B.A. Carleton College
Ph.D. Duke University
Research
His current research focuses on the spread of solidarity economy practices worldwide. These practices and the transnational networks that surround them aim to forge alternative economies around principles of social solidarity, cooperation, and community-based development. He studies their potential and limitations as alternatives to mainstream capitalism and as reflecting counter-hegemonic forms of globalization. More locally, his research involves mapping solidarity economy practices in the Philadelphia region and assessing their relation to racial and class divides in the city. He is also using qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the solidarity economy's economic impact in the region. This includes the study of cooperatives and collectives, community gardens, and complementary currencies and time banks, among other initiatives.
In his forthcoming book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, 2024), Borowiak and his co-authors map and analyze solidarity economies in Philadelphia, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts. Using mapping techniques in combination with in-depth interviews and surveys, the authors demonstrate that the spatial footprints and community roles of solidarity economies are much larger than most people think. Additionally, the authors examine how solidarity economies have developed in tension with racial and poverty fault lines that divide urban space. They highlight how solidarity economy initiatives act as bulwarks against gentrification, exploitation, and economic exclusion, as well as spaces for socially and politically transformative encounters among people with different backgrounds.
His earlier book, Accountability and Democracy: The Pitfalls and Promise of Popular Control (Oxford University Press, 2011), examines the meaning of democratic accountability across major democratic theory traditions. The book then explores how different accountability paradigms might be used to address legitimacy gaps in contemporary global and national governance.
In addition to academic research, he has co-led the development of a national solidarity economy mapping platform.
Selected Publications
Books:
Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya and Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak. Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, 2024)
Craig Borowiak, Richardson Dilworth and Anne Reynolds (eds.), Exploring Cooperatives: Economic Democracy and Community Development in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Ext, 2016)
Accountability and Democracy: The Pitfalls and Promise of Popular Control (Oxford University Press, 2011)
Journal Articles:
Stephen Healy, Craig Borowiak, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Maliha Safri. “Commoning and the Politics of Solidarity: Transformational Responses to Poverty.” Geoforum 127 (2021): 306-315
Marianna Pavlovskaya, Craig Borowiak, Maliha Safri, Stephen Healy, and Robert Eletto. "The Place of the Common Bond: Can Credit Unions Make Place for Solidarity Economy," Annals of the American Association of Geographers 111, No. 4 (2019): 1278-1299
"Poverty in Transit: Uber, Taxi Co-ops, and the Struggle over Philadelphia's Transportation Economy," Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 51, No. 5 (2019): 1079-1100
Craig Borowiak and Minsun Ji. "Taxi Co-ops versus Uber: Struggles for Workplace Democracy in the Sharing Economy," Journal of Labor and Society 22, No.1 (2019): 165-185
Craig Borowiak, Maliha Safri, Stephen Healy, Marianna Pavlovskaya. “Navigating the Fault Lines: Race and Class in Philadelphia’s Solidarity Economy,” Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 50, No. 3 (2018): 577-603
Maliha Safri, Stephen Healy, Craig Borowiak and Marianna Pavlovskaya. “Putting Solidarity Economy on the Map,” Journal of Design Strategies 9, No.1 (Fall 2017): 71-83
Craig Borowiak, Vicky Funari, jesikah maria ross and Helen White. “Troubled Waters: Tracing Globalization and Waste in the Delaware River,” PS: Political Science & Politics 50, No. 1 (January 2017)
“Mapping Social and Solidarity Economy: the Local and Translocal Evolution of a Concept,” in Social Economy in China and the World, edited by Ngai Pun, Ben Hok-bun Ku, Hairong Yan, Anita Koo (NY: Routledge, 2015)
"Political Theory in the Liberal Arts: How it's Different and Why it's not all the Same," Polity 46 (2014): 107-114
“Disorienting Cosmopolitanism: Democratic Accountability and the Politics of Disruption," Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 20, No. 3 (2013): 372-387
“The World Tribunal on Iraq: Citizens’ Tribunals and the Struggle for Accountability” New Political Science Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 2008): 161-186
“Review Essay: Theorizing Europe and its Divisions,” Political Theory Vol. 36, No. 1 (February 2008): 152-160
“Accountability Debates: The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, and Democratic Deficits,” Journal of Politics Vol. 69, No.4 (November 2007): 998-1014
“Farmers Rights: Intellectual Property and the Struggle Over Seeds,” Politics & Society Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 2004): 511-543
Tania Roy and Craig Borowiak. “Against Ecofeminism: the Splintered Subject of Agrarian Nationalism in Post-Independent India,” Alternatives: Global Local Political Vol. 28, No. 1, 2003: 57-90
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