ABSTRACT
Worldwide trends toward trade liberalization and economic competitiveness in the global economy would seem to pose a fundamental challenge to dominant labor-based political parties. Most of these parties established their links with the labor movement under very different conditions from those that predominate today. Labor support was sought by political parties during a period when the industrial working class was an important force in society and when national economies were more oriented toward import-substitution industrialization than toward export-promotion as a basis for national economic growth and development. Today’s pressures to reduce the role of the state in the economy, deregulate labor markets, flexibilize working conditions, and reduce labor costs in production undermine the basic terms of the pact established between state/parties and the labor movement. In this sense, it is important to ask how is the new global economic environment affecting the ability of dominant labor-based parties to retain power? The answer is significant not only for labor’s role in national political systems, but also for the nature of democracy and the prospects for economic growth and development in dominant laborparty systems.
