Frances Fox Piven

Frances Fox Piven is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her scholarship and activism have centered on social movements, electoral politics, and welfare policy.

She received her B.A. in City Planning from the University of Chicago, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She has taught in the Columbia University School of Social Work and at Boston University, and has been on the faculty of the Graduate Center since 1982.

In the early 1960’s, Professor Piven worked as a research associate at one of the country's first anti-poverty agencies, Mobilization for Youth, and in 1966, she helped found the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), a grass-roots organization of welfare recipients. Her book with co-author Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor (1972), analyzed the historical roots of welfare, arguing that welfare rolls expand in response to mass disorder and electoral shifts, and that advances the poor have made resulted from their ability to disrupt institutions that depend on their cooperation.

Professor Piven has studied voter registration and participation patterns, and in 1983 helped found HumanSERVE, an organization that promoted easy access to voter registration. The organization’s approach was incorporated in the “Motor Voter Bill” passed in 1993.

She co-authored Poor People’s Movements (1977), which analyzed 20th century protest movements, and argued that organization-building is less effective than mass disruptive power. Her other co-authored books include The New Class War (1982), The Mean Season (1987), The Breaking of the American Social Compact (1997), and Why Americans Don’t Vote (1998). She campaigned against welfare cutbacks in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992, she edited Labor Parties in Postindustrial Societies, a collection of essays on the impact of globalization on Left political parties. Her most recent book is Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2006).

Professor Piven has served on the boards of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Democratic Socialists of America. She is currently the Editorial Board Chair of the New Press, is a Left Forum board member, and is outgoing President of the American Sociological Association. Under her leadership, the ASA conference’s theme was “Another World Is Possible,” echoing the slogan of the World Social Forum. She used her tenure to challenge fellow sociologists to respond to current neo-liberal policies by searching for political strategies that might affect “reform and transformation.”