Research Project

As organized labor developed in regions throughout the world, it became a prominent method by which typically disempowered economic and social classes galvanized their influence in societal affairs. This has contributed to the perception of organized labor as a democratizing force within the nations it inhabits. This asserted relationship between labor and democracy comes at odds, however, with countless examples of authoritarian governments coexisting with and even endorsing the presence of organized labor under their regimes. While literature exists that examines how labor movements and institutions have integrated with autocratic regimes, the body of work largely focuses on the outcomes of these integration methods rather than investigating the question of whether labor is truly at odds with autocracy. This study seeks to clarify this relationship through a cross-regional analysis of autocratic regimes in Latin America, the Middle East, and West Africa. Within this analysis, this study only investigates countries in the nascent years of a newly empowered autocratic government, positing this timespan to be when policy is nearly exclusively carried out for the purposes of consolidating authoritarian power. Through researching the labor relations policies of the case studies examined, a strong trend is found of drastic labor suppression, regardless of a country’s region, the integration of labor in the prior government, the country’s regime type before autocratic takeover, and an array of other factors. Recognizing the intensely negative disposition of new autocracies towards labor, this study finds a theoretical understanding of organized labor as a democraticizing threat to authoritarian power.