Download or read book The Politics of Labor Protection in Authoritarian Systems written by Christina Chen and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation seeks to shed light on labor politics in authoritarian settings by examining the ways in which labor conflicts and unions affected the making and implementation of labor policy in post-reform China. Western observers would argue that the absence of trade union independence and pluralism in countries like China is the cause of weak labor protection. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I show that in the absence of democratic elections, trade union independence and pluralism, labor conflicts can be a catalyst for union empowerment and pro-labor policies. In China, rising labor conflicts since the 1990s threatened the survival of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule and induced the CCP to allow the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the previously feeble official trade union organization, to take on a more active role in articulating workers' interests at both the national and local levels. The CCP's shift gave the ACFTU the opening to promote workers' rights, and the and the ACFTU was able to gain rapid access to the policy process at the national level. At the local level, my research shows that the more contentious the labor situation, the more empowered the unions are on workplace issues. And the more empowered the unions, the more diligent government labor bureaucracies are in enforcing labor laws and regulations. This dissertation is one of the first to systematically examine Chinese labor politics at the sub-national level. A systematic examination of labor enforcement across China is required to know whether national-level changes have been implemented by local governments, which variables shape enforcement, and whether a stronger union brings positive changes to working conditions. China's provinces offer interesting comparisons of union strength and labor law enforcement at the sub-national level. Using an inter-provincial dataset I compiled, I tested the relationship between labor conflicts, union institutional development and regulatory enforcement. I compiled the data from a variety of sources, including more than 70 statistical yearbooks as well as official statistical reports published by provincial level government and Chinese news reports. I supported my empirical findings with interview information I gathered during my 12 months of fieldwork in China.
Download or read book Workers and Welfare written by Michelle L. Dion and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-02-28 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the revolutionary period of 1910-1920, Mexico developed a number of social protection programs to support workers in public and private sectors and to establish safeguards for the poor and the aged. These included pensions, healthcare, and worker's compensation. The new welfare programs were the product of a complex interrelationship of corporate, labor, and political actors. In this unique dynamic, cross-class coalitions maintained both an authoritarian regime and social protection system for some seventy years, despite the ebb and flow of political and economic tides. By focusing on organized labor, and its powerful role in effecting institutional change, Workers and Welfare chronicles the development and evolution of Mexican social insurance institutions in the twentieth century. Beginning with the antecedents of social insurance and the adoption of pension programs for central government workers in 1925, Dion's analysis shows how the labor movement, up until the 1990s, was instrumental in expanding welfare programs, but has since become largely ineffective. Despite stepped-up efforts, labor has seen the retrenchment of many benefits. Meanwhile, Dion cites the debt crisis, neoliberal reform, and resulting changes in the labor market as all contributing to a rise in poverty. Today, Mexican welfare programs emphasize poverty alleviation, in a marked shift away from social insurance benefits for the working class.
Download or read book Working Through the Past written by Teri L. Caraway and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume highlight the critical role that authoritarian legacies play in shaping labor politics in new democracies, providing the first cross-regional analysis of the impact of authoritarianism on labor.
Download or read book Labour Organising Under Authoritarian Regimes written by Claire Ceruti and published by Hampp Verlag. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides the history and background necessary to understand authoritarianism in countries ranging from Russia to eSwatini and from Brazil to the Philippines, as well as conceptual lenses for understanding authoritarianism and resistance to it, specific practical experiences of establishing international solidarity and debates emerging from that imperative. Its chapters cover the convergence of politics with the organisation of labour under authoritarianism, the use of labour laws and institutions to suppress labour, alternatives to conventional trade unions where unions are co-opted or banned, and the treatment of refugees in unequal labour markets. This book will appeal to labour activists, scholars and workers everywhere.
Download or read book The Politics of Authoritarian Rule written by Milan W. Svolik and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What drives politics in dictatorships? Milan W. Svolik argues authoritarian regimes must resolve two fundamental conflicts. Dictators face threats from the masses over which they rule - the problem of authoritarian control. Secondly from the elites with whom dictators rule - the problem of authoritarian power-sharing. Using the tools of game theory, Svolik explains why some dictators establish personal autocracy and stay in power for decades; why elsewhere leadership changes are regular and institutionalized, as in contemporary China; why some dictatorships are ruled by soldiers, as Uganda was under Idi Amin; why many authoritarian regimes, such as PRI-era Mexico, maintain regime-sanctioned political parties; and why a country's authoritarian past casts a long shadow over its prospects for democracy, as the unfolding events of the Arab Spring reveal. Svolik complements these and other historical case studies with the statistical analysis on institutions, leaders and ruling coalitions across dictatorships from 1946 to 2008.
Download or read book Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes written by Tom Ginsburg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the form and function of constitutions in countries without the fully articulated institutions of limited government.
Download or read book Competitive Authoritarianism written by Steven Levitsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.
Download or read book Authoritarian Legality in China written by Mary E. Gallagher and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Chinese workers' experiences and shows how disenchantment with the legal system drives workers from the courtroom to the streets.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy written by Angela B. Cornell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-20 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.
Download or read book Politics of Labor Reform in Latin America written by Maria Lorena Cook and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Authoritarian Police in Democracy written by Yanilda María González and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In countries around the world, from the United States to the Philippines to Chile, police forces are at the center of social unrest and debates about democracy and rule of law. This book examines the persistence of authoritarian policing in Latin America to explain why police violence and malfeasance remain pervasive decades after democratization. It also examines the conditions under which reform can occur. Drawing on rich comparative analysis and evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, the book opens up the 'black box' of police bureaucracies to show how police forces exert power and cultivate relationships with politicians, as well as how social inequality impedes change. González shows that authoritarian policing persists not in spite of democracy but in part because of democratic processes and public demand. When societal preferences over the distribution of security and coercion are fragmented along existing social cleavages, politicians possess few incentives to enact reform.
Download or read book Private Government written by Elizabeth Anderson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.
Download or read book Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy written by Michael Albertus and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.
Download or read book Rule By Law written by Tom Ginsburg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-08 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars have generally assumed that courts in authoritarian states are pawns of their regimes, upholding the interests of governing elites and frustrating the efforts of their opponents. As a result, nearly all studies in comparative judicial politics have focused on democratic and democratizing countries. This volume brings together leading scholars in comparative judicial politics to consider the causes and consequences of judicial empowerment in authoritarian states. It demonstrates the wide range of governance tasks that courts perform, as well as the way in which courts can serve as critical sites of contention both among the ruling elite and between regimes and their citizens. Drawing on empirical and theoretical insights from every major region of the world, this volume advances our understanding of judicial politics in authoritarian regimes.
Download or read book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics written by Marc J. Hetherington and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. This book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews - what guides people's view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldview are rooted in what Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe as authoritarianism. They show that differences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues on the contemporary issue agenda - about race, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and the use of force to resolve security problems - reflect differences in individuals' levels of authoritarianism. Events and strategic political decisions have conspired to make all these considerations more salient. The authors demonstrate that the left and the right have coalesced around these opposing worldviews, which has provided politics with more incandescent hues than before.
Download or read book Mobilizing Restraint written by Emmanuel Teitelbaum and published by ILR Press. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mobilizing Restraint, Emmanuel Teitelbaum argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, democracies are better at managing industrial conflict than authoritarian regimes. This is because democracies have two unique tools at their disposal for managing worker protest: mutually beneficial union-party ties and worker rights. By contrast, authoritarian governments have tended to repress unions and to sever mutually beneficial ties to organized labor. Many of the countries that fall between these two extremes—from those that have only the trappings of democracy to those that have imperfectly implemented democratic reforms—exert control over labor in the absence of overt repression but without the robust organizational and institutional capacity enjoyed by full-fledged democracies. Based on the recent history of industrial conflict and industrial peace in South Asia, Teitelbaum argues that the political exclusion and repression of organized labor commonly witnessed in authoritarian and hybrid regimes has extremely deleterious effects on labor relations and ultimately economic growth. To test his arguments, Teitelbaum draws on an array of data, including his original qualitative interviews and survey evidence from Sri Lanka and three Indian states—Kerala, Maharashtra, and West Bengal. He also analyzes panel data from fifteen Indian states to evaluate the relationship between political competition and worker protest and to study the effects of protective labor legislation on economic performance. In Teitelbaum’s view, countries must undergo further political liberalization before they are able to replicate the success of the sophisticated types of growth-enhancing management of industrial protest seen throughout many parts of South Asia.
Download or read book Freedom in the World 2018 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 1265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.
