Shaping the Political Arena – Critical Junctures, The Labor Movement, & Regime Dynamics in Latin American (Paper) - Softcover

Collier, R B

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691023131 ISBN 13: 9780691023137

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Illuminating the dynamics of political change in Latin America during the twentieth century, this ambitious work traces the impact of a "critical juncture": a period of fundamental political reorientation in which countries are set on distinct trajectories of change. Here Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier focus on the response of national states to the newly radicalized working class and organized labor movements that arose earlier in this century in the course of capitalist modernization. They examine the incorporation of the labor movement, showing how national leaders--including Percn in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil--sought to impose a new political and institutional framework on working-class politics. Through a comparative-historical analysis of eight countries, the authors show how different strategies of control and mobilization left distinct legacies in terms of political coalitions, party systems, and modes of political conflict. These outcomes in turn influenced patterns of regime change, including the democratic or authoritarian path each country followed through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. The concluding chapter asks whether Latin America may now be entering a new critical juncture.

About this title

Review

"This book is a disciplined, paired comparison of the eight Latin American countries with the longest history of urban commercial and industrial development--Brazil and Chile, Mexico and Venezuela, Uruguay and Colombia, Argentina and Peru. . . . Overall, a path-breaking volume." --Foreign Affairs

About the Author

RUTH BERINS COLLIER is professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America (1999). DAVID COLLIER is professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691023131
• ISBN 13: 9780691023137
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 902