Working Through the Past: Labor and Authoritarian Legacies in Comparative Perspective ed. by Teri L. Caraway, Maria Lorena Cook, and Stephen Crowley (review)

Working Through the Past tackles an essential question for labour scholars and activists today: how do we assess the prospects for organized workers' resistance in the neoliberal era?

Specifically, the collection examines the tensions and contractions of labour relations in a diverse range of political contexts connected by shared histories of authoritarian governance over the past century. Included in this volume are former state socialist countries (Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia) and a range of primarily military regimes across Latin America (Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile) and South East Asia (Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan).

The main premise of the book is that the legacies of these authoritarian governments continue to have a significant impact on the nature of labour relations in these countries. Focusing on the institutional and organizational capacities of labour organizations, the contributors lay out the ways legacies of anti-democratic and authoritarian governments have shaped their potential for developing effective strategies to counter neoliberal processes.

Drawing from the conceptualization of Paola Cesarini and Katherine Hite ("Introducing the Concept of Authoritarian Legacies," in Nancy Gina Bermeo, ed., Authoritarian Legacies and Democracy in Latin America and Southern Europe, [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004], 1-24), the editors identify three central primary arenas where histories of authoritarian governments have impacted the nature of labour relations. These include legacies in formal structures, in the ongoing cultural and psychological context, and the power of conservative groups. In the diverse set of political contexts considered in this volume, the applicability of each of these legacies and the degree to which they impact the current labour context varies markedly. In terms of the analyses developed in this collection, consideration of authoritarian legacies translates into a focus on the formal and informal practices of actors inside unions, the state, and those of employers, and the way these practices and institutional processes can be traced to the authoritarian period. More specifically, the contributors focus on three areas to assess the strengths and liabilities for unions following from these histories: labour law, ideology, and the role of legacy unions, those unions originating or dominant during the authoritarian period.

How does this volume contribute to our understanding of the current potential for labour resistance in these regions?

First, this collection provides useful snapshots of the overall institutional terrain on which labour organizing happens in each of the countries examined. The chapters primarily assess the current capacities of unions and the rootedness of the dominant institutional practices, dynamics, and strategies of these unions in their respective authoritarian periods. Contributors pay particular attention to the internal dynamics and structures of the unions, assessing how their practices have been aided or hampered by state strategies and structures which have been inherited from the authoritarian period. One of the ways they do this is by examining the most important features of contemporary labour laws in each country, their origins in the authoritarian period, and how they continue to shape union strategies. Most of the chapters provide insightful analyses of both the internal institutional context of unions today and the nature and impact of contemporary labour laws. It is on the question of ideology that the contributors differ. Of the three areas used to analyze authoritarian legacies, the ideological terrain is generally the least developed. Given the institutional approach, ideology is mostly understood as a factor shaping internal union politics and/or labour policy decisions of the governing political parties. This means that ideology is treated as one factor in understanding the life of these institutions rather than as a separate analytical frame. For instance, many of the authors examine the ideological motivations of specific actors or group of actors. The analysis of the ideological dimensions of these institutional actors is necessary for assessing the current nature of labour relations and would only be strengthened by added attention to...