Review

"Ruth Collier has written an important contribution to the literatures on democracy and on labor, one that should reorient much discussion and work on democratization...The major contribution of this superb book rests in part on its sheer empirical scope...a lasting contribution of this book should be a heightened awareness of labor's role and an intellectual commitment to use that as a basis for systematically conceptualizing the road to democracy." American Political Science Review

"...ambitious comparative analysis...highly sophisticated theoretical book... this is an imperessive, empirical, methodological, and theoretical addition to the comparative literature on democratization... [it] will prove to be a lasting addition to the field." Sebastián Royo, New Political Science

Product Description

The question of whether democratization is an elite-led process from above or a popular triumph from below continues to be an area of contention among political scientists. Examining the experiences of countries that have provided the main empirical base for recent theorizing, namely, Western Europe and South America, this book delineates a more complex and varied set of patterns. The volume explores democratization through a comparative analysis that examines the role of labor in relation to elite strategies in both contemporary and historical perspectives.