Volume 36, Number 3, April 2004

Variation in the level and quality of labor mobilization after the fall of authoritarian regimes has been underestimated. Evidence from Bulgaria, Poland, and Russia demonstrates variation across countries, across movements within countries, and in the behavior of the same movements over time. To understand this variation, it is necessary to look at how competition between labor unions interacts with coalitions between unions and political parties. Comparison with Spain and Argentina supports the wider relevance of these mechanisms. Finally, it is necessary to consider the conditions under which competition between unions and strong alliances with political parties are likely to emerge in new democracies.

The place of labor in market reform coalitions, ranging from democratic inclusion to labor repression, triggers a trade-off between the degree of deregulation in the formal sector and the amount of compensations targeted to the unemployed and poor workers in the informal sector. Comparative analysis of Chile (1973-1989), Argentina (1989-99), and Spain (1982-96) reveals that, the more organized labor is included in the policymaking process, the less extensive reform of the system of industrial relations will be. Conversely, the more organized labor is repressed or excluded, the more labor law will be deregulated. In addition, when labor is excluded or repressed, the relative importance of compensatory policies in the form of subsidies to unemployed and unorganized workers in the informal sector is greater.

How has Brazil’s civil society shaped the institutional framework for new policymaking venues? Institutionalism and civil society theories offer partial explanations of institutional innovations under the current democratic regime. The concept of participatory publics can overcome the limitations of each approach and can demonstrate how the expansion of Brazil’s civil society led to the creation of participatory, deliberative policymaking institutions. Participatory publics comprise organized citizens who seek to overcome social and political exclusion through public deliberation, accountability, and implementation of their policy preferences. Participatory budgeting in the municipalities of Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, and Recife shows how civil society organizations and political reformers interact to implement new policymaking systems.

Remittances are becoming a more important source of funds for many Third World countries than foreign aid, bank loans, and foreign investment, as families find their own transnational solutions to limited homeland economic opportunities. The impact of remittances, however, is contingent on the social relations and structures in which the foreign currency becomes embedded. While good for recipients, they may have mixed consequences for states. Although Cuba’s Communist regime appears to be a strong state with a weak society, remittance dynamics are transforming and undermining, as well as bolstering, the state and strengthening society differentially within a transnationalized context. Conditions conducive to remittance sending and the effects of informal dollarization are analyzed, with comparisons to Central American countries with similar open economies but different regime types.

North American publics and regional trade liberalization have been little studied. Although the North American free trade arrangement is relatively recent, political debate and grass-roots protest over trade in Canada and the United States are increasingly visible, and a fuller understanding of how citizens in these countries judge trade policy is needed. An analysis of the influences of national identity, economic self-interest, and supranational attitudes on Canadian and American opinion toward NAFTA, using comparative data from the 1995-96 International Social Survey Program, indicates how symbolic predispositions of national identity provide significant and accessible information shortcuts for citizens on trade.

Standing at the crossroads of politics, administration, economy, and society, the study of clientelism has unfolded in three waves of research since the 1960s. While initially research considered clientelism to be mainly a vestige of early modern development, later research has been intrigued by its systemic persistence and continuous organizational change. A review of the most recent wave of research on political clientelism traces some of its major paradigmatic and conceptual trends and shifts, addresses its institutional viability under democracy and market economy, and delineates the future direction of research on the institutional contexts favoring or constraining it.