MILITANTS OR PARTISANS: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan - Tapa dura

"A great book on the little-known complexities and ironies of labor politics in the new East Asian democracies-judiciously researched, cogently argued, and beautifully written." -- Hagen Koo, Professor of Sociology "Labor movements played an important role in the third wave of democratization, but responded to their new-found political freedom in very different ways. In this nuanced study, Yoonkyung Lee shows how labor militancy in Korea sprang out of a particularly repressive authoritarian order and weak links to political parties following the transition to democratic rule. Organized labor in Taiwan, by contrast, found party channels through which they could defend their interests. A strong contribution to the literature on the political economy of East Asia, with interesting implications for studies of labor and democratization more generally." -- Stephan Haggard, Krause Professor, Graduate School of International Relations, University of California "The author cogently highlights the theoretical significance of labor politics that influence the shaping, structuring, and transformation of industrial relations and union activism . . . The persuasion of the author's arguments, I recognize, is based on the many strengths of the book, including its articulated and logical construction, its well-evidenced discussion, its critical and clear theoretical reasoning, and even the author's fluid writing style. For such reasons, I truly enjoyed reading this book, and strongly recommend it not only to researchers who are interested in exploring the labor regimes of Korea and Taiwan, but also to academics who want to apply theoretical conception and reasoning to their empirical research into labor politics." -- Byoung-Hoon Lee * Taiwan Journal of Democracy *

This book explains the origins, processes, and outcomes of South Korea's militant unionism and Taiwan's partisan unionism by investigating the interaction between labor unions and democratic institutions, especially political parties.