Category: Labor and labor unions

Labor mourns loss of democracy advocates

     

Labor unions are often a country’s largest, most representative civil society groups, with a membership base that adds democratic credentials and legitimacy that most NGOs can only envy. Public approval… Read more »

Do protest movements generate democracy? Liberalism of the streets

     

Events in both Moscow and Hong Kong show how single-grievance protests can evolve into wider movements, argues FT analyst Gideon Rachman:  Between them, Russia and China represent the major geopolitical… Read more »

Labor militancy unsettles China’s ruling party

     

It’s not only the Hong Kong protests that are giving China’s ruling Communist Party cause for concern. Growing labor militancy is another potential source of instability, analysts suggest.  China’s delivery… Read more »

Algeria’s divided democracy movement seeks end to impasse

     

In April 2019, Algerians ousted President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, becoming the fifth Arab country to topple a president since 2011, the Brookings Institution reports. Though successfully deposing the head of state,… Read more »

Can new social contract restore faith in democracy?

     

Labor unions have played a critical role in democratic transitions, in sustaining democracy and  as civil society groups advancing pluralism and democratic norms. So the latest annual Global Rights Index from the… Read more »

China blinks: what Beijing’s Hong Kong retreat says about Taiwan’s future

     

Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers aren’t satisfied with leader Carrie Lam’s public apology for how the government handled a highly unpopular extradition bill. Legislator Claudia Mo said Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s apology… Read more »

Solidarity? Poland’s democracy anniversary exposes divisions

     

The struggle for freedom against tyranny in Poland in 1989 was defined by a single word: solidarity. Workers and union leaders, teachers and students, church leaders and intellectuals united in… Read more »

Why Solidarity prevailed: commitment to democratic norms

     

Karol Modzelewski, a historian who became a driving force in Solidarity, the labor movement that helped topple the Communist regime in Poland, and its first spokesman, died on April 28… Read more »

Tiananmen legacy? China’s new authoritarian equilibrium

     

In the realm of global power distribution, as in any area where human agency remains paramount, trends need not become outcomes, notes Andrew A. Michta, dean of the College of… Read more »