Roberts 2012

• Introduction
• one the one hand, democratic regimes from the 1980s have proven remarkably durable adn resilient to crises (2)
• On the other hand, party systems have been far less stable
• Paradoxically, democratic consolidation has coincided with a crisis of representation and general disillusionment with the political establishment
• but this crisis affects different countries differently
• Critical junctures:
• neoliberal turn (3)
• reactive sequences against neoliberalism!
• Modes of political representation based in ISI were undermined by its collapse, specficially among the popular classes
• and party systems varied widely in their ability to channel these issues
• Broadly, these critical junctures dealigned parties, made their programmatic promises seem less sincere (especially thanks to bait and switch)
• Argument:
• when a populist/mass-based party undertook economic reform
• it often made the transition more politically viable
• but also dealigned the party from its constituents (4)
• when a right party undertook economic reform
• left party was able to channel dissent through the insittuions
• party alignment was "reinforced"
• in both cases, parties that undertook reforms were vulnerable to leftist challenges
• The Puzzle of Party System Stability in Latin America
• Presidentialized party systems may result in parties with unaccountable elites, ambiguous programmatic stands, but it doesn't help explain the wide variation in strength and durability of party systems (5)
• electoral competition has not stabilized party systems or crystallized partisan identities
• During neoliberal transition programmatic differentiation was tough, since there were such acute constraints on policy options available (7)
• by contrast, the left turn helped realign some of these party systems
• "neoliberal critical junctures and teh reactive sequences they spawned dislodged and reconfigured historic party systems, altering their programmatic alignments in was that heavily conditioned the stability ot partisan competition in the aftermath period" (8)
• Market Liberalization and Part system alignments during neoliberal critical junctures
• Critical junctures are designed to explain why similar types of political or economic challenges produce different, path dependent patterns of institutional change across a range of cases
• suggest neoliberal critical juncture from 1973-1998 (Chavez ended it) (9)
• it altered:
• the character and purpose of state power
• the patterns of association in civil society
• the ways in which societal interests and claims were articulated and represented in the political arena (Collier and Handlin 2009, Yashar 2005)
• Party systems before market adjustment: (10)
• labor mobilizing
• elitist (with clientelistic relations to popular sectors)
• these preconditions weighed heavily on results of critic juncture, but did not define them entirely
• three basic requirements of programmatic structuring of party systems
• parties must adopt relatively coherent stands on salient issues that divide teh body politic (11)
• policies adopted in office must bear resemblance to election platform
• bait and switch severs relationship between electoral verdicts and the content of public policy (12)
• there must be meaningful differences/policy alternatives between the competing parties
• often not true during ISI crisis
• The regionwide transition undermined all three of these basic conditions (13)
• lots of policy switching, left/populist parties went along with reforms, or did bait and switch (13)
• created internal party dissension among leftish parties
• often meant that popular sector connections to parties were severd, replaced with clientelistic relations (14)
• BUT if a conservative party initiated transition, and left remained in opposition, no dealignment
• Three possible outcomes: table on page 16
• parties aligned (contested liberalism), outcome was a durable party system (15)
• Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Uruguay
• Mexico, thanks to creation of PRD which replaced PRI as left
• ambiguously Nicaragua (17)
• dealigned (bait and witch), or neutral (no real left to contest) results on part system (neoliberal convergence), outcome was not a durable part system
• dealigned: Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela
• Neutral: Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay
• contested liberalism allowed for dissent to be challenged through stable forms of electoral competition (17)
• neoliberal convergence resulted in systems susceptible to destabilizing reactive sequences
• 17-25 goes through cases and uses electoral data, etc to prove this story
• 
  

Murillo and Schrank 2005

Murillo, M. Victoria, and Andrew Schrank. 2005. "With a Little Help from my Friends". Comparative Political Studies. 38 (8): 971-999.

• Introduction
• 13 of the 18 collective labor reforms between 1985 and 1998 have enhanced labor’s ability to bargain collectively, despite rampant neoliberal reforms (972)
• two possible explanations
• labor-backed parties are trying to keep their constituents happy
• transnational activism between US and labor repressive states have forced improvements in labor law as a condition to have access to US market
• Both explanations are right, depending on the past institutional context of the country in question (973)...regardless, interestingly enough globalization seems to be improving the influence labor has over collective labor law!
• Labor Rights and Economic Reform in Latin America
• free market reforms have certainly hurt labor, and individual labor codes have gotten worse for workers, but not collective codes (974)
• yet we would expect neoliberal reforms to include deregulation of collective labor codes as well as individual labor codes (976)
• nor are the improvements to collective law merely cosmetic!
• Labor Mobilization Legacies and Labor Reform Strategies
• The process of globalization has altered the costs and benefits of union-friendly labor law reform (979), integration in the global economy and trade have:
• increased the political returns to pro-labor reform in countries with labor-backed parties, as those parties are trying to win-back the allegiance of working class constituencies
• increased the material costs of non-reform in labor repressive countries, who don’t want to lose trading status with the US over labor rights issues
• Quant model (980-985)
• Results:
• Partisan and transnational alliances work through preexisting institutional configurations (985)
• “...partisan alliances foster union-friendly reform in organized labor’s traditional strongholds, but yield indeterminate results elsewhere.” (987)
• “...transnational alliances yield their biggest payoffs...in countries where labor has never achieved enough organizational strength to be considered a serious player in the political arena..” (987)
• Qualitative Case Studies: Argentina and the Dominican Repbulic
• Similarities
• both were model neoliberal reformers (987)
• both adopted union-friendly collective labor law (987-988)
• Differences
• they feature radically different labor relations and party systems (988)
• Argentina
• PJ survived the 1990s by abandoning labor (989)
• pro-labor reform in 1998 BECAUSE:
• 1997 elections saw Pj start to lose electoral support
• new law was opposed by business, IMF, non-PJ labor activists, and the two opposition parties (990)
• also, after Alianza came to power, they tried to deregulate collective labor law
• In 1998 PJ tried to win back it’s friends, My take: but wasn’t successful enough to win next elections
• Dominican Republic
• DR economy based on textiles, other low-cost production in EPZs (990-991)
• In 1989 America’s Watch filed GSP petition against DR (991)
• AFL-CIO threatened similar actions, focusing especially on EPZs
• DR initiated reform in 1992 to not lose trade with US (991-2)
• Granted:  wages, conditions still not great, but better than in a lot of other EPZs (992)
• Conclusion
• though similar outcomes re: collective labor law, there is not a convergence of tactics/strategies in Latin America....still depends on institutional context (994, 993, respectively)
• Important differences
• labor repressive regimes are aligning their labor codes with generally accepted conditions, etc (994)
• labor-backed parties are implementing labor reforms that specifically improve the organizational capacity of unions