Protest and Social Concertation
Jose Aleman
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, political scientists have taken stock of union responses to political
and economic reforms in new democracies.
While democratization expands popular
participation, it is often noted, it also increases pressures for redistribution and improved
One way governments have addressed this challenge is by involving
representatives of trade unions and employer associations in policy making. Over the last
two decades, this form of inclusive cooperation – national policy concertation – has
featured prominently in processes of democratic transition and consolidation.
The trend towards dialogue on economic and social policies has attracted some
After all, the current global wave of democratization highlights the
interaction between democratization and market oriented reforms, including labor market
adjustments. Nevertheless, most studies of labor politics in new democracies have not
explicitly addressed the interaction between national policy concertation and the nature of
In this paper, I address two important questions. Do institutions that incorporate
trade unions in policy making provide meaningful policy outputs, thereby moderating
labor demands? New democracies, it is often said, typically face considerable wage
pressures (Kurtz 2004, p. 27; Nelson 1991, p. 37). At the same time, a number of
1
Graeme B. Robertson, “Leading Labor: Unions, Politics and Protest in New Democracies.” Comparative
Politics 36: 3, 253-272, 2004; and M. Victoria Murillo, “From Populism to Neoliberalism: Labor Unions
and Market Reforms in Latin America.” World Politics 52, 2000, 135-174. “Labor Unions, Partisan
Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America.” New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
2
Nelson 1991, p. 51.
3
Examples can be found in Latin American (Munck 1994, p. 90) and Eastern Europe (Ost 2000, p. 504).
Trebilcock 1994 provides a useful topical and geographical survey. Other terms used to denote this
phenomenon include ‘social pacts, ‘social compact’, ‘socio-economic pacts’, ‘employment pacts’ and
‘growth pacts’.
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Evaluations of the effect of policy concertation range from the epiphenomenal – where is it argued that
other forces and/or institutions have more explanatory weight (Munck 1994) – to the negative, where
national policy concertation essentially serves to co-opt trade union demands (Ost 2000).
5
The exceptions are Ekiert & Kubik 1998, 1999.
2
Convention