Historically, Latin American political regimes have sought to
postpone far-reaching economic reforms and improvements in living
standards in order to facilitate the accumulation of private
capital. These goals have led to exclusion of the lower classes
from the political process altogether or to efforts to control
their political mobilization. The ability of governments to
maintain such control has often been attributed to the lack of
political sophistication by the working class or to the
distribution of benefits through patron-client networks designed to
preserve the hegemony of ruling parties. Using new survey data from
500 industrial workers in Mexico and Venezuela, Charles L. Davis
now questions these conventional explanations and two others: that
industrial workers are part of a ""labor aristocracy"" and are
therefore content with the performance of the capitalist regimes,
and that political control is exercised through restriction of
partisan competition and thus of opportunities for workers to
challenge developmental priorities and public policy goals. Davis's
study demonstrates that working-class mobilization is more firmly
controlled in Mexico's one-party dominant political system than in
Venezuela's two-party system. He finds little evidence that
political participation in either country is guided by labor unions
with ties to dominant parties. Nor are these workers content with
the performance of the regimes or lacking in political
sophistication. The primary explanation for their psychological
disengagement from politics and avoidance of protest voting appears
to be the lack of meaningful electoral options. Davis's two case
studies provide important new insights into an issue that appears
certain to remain ex-plosive as dissident labor leaders in Latin
America seek to mobilize working-class opposition to existing state
developmental strategies.
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