Labor-inclusive corporatism after democratic transitions

Institutionalization in South Africa and Brazil

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4237705
AutoresHenrique A Castro (0000-0003-0016-5107, University of Konstanz, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen23
Número1
Páginas97-123
Fecha de publicación2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
DOI10.1093/ser/mwae065
OpenAlexW4403665934
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas54

Under what conditions has corporatist policymaking become institutionalized in newly transitioned democracies? I argue that transitions have provided temporary opportunities for unions to push for laws they can later use to protect their place in economic councils. The relevant sets of legal rules, which I call compulsory deliberation, enable non-'State official' members to resist governmental disruption of such councils despite them composing the Executive's structure. I compare South Africa and Brazil, two 'most similar' cases that featured sequences of chronically unstable labor-excluding councils under authoritarian regimes. I argue that the former broke out of this trajectory while the latter did not because South African unions developed aspirations for durable policy influence before the transition, whereas Brazilian ones only did so afterward and thus mobilized too late. Although Brazilian governments have enacted dozens of regulations covering as many councils, these have only served as short-term instruments for marketing policies

Corporatism · Democracy · Democratization · Development economics · Economic system · Economics · Institutionalisation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Labor Movements and Unions · Social Policy and Reform Studies