In this book, Matthew Carnes lays out a theory of the origins and evolution of labor codes in Latin America. He situates his work in the broader literature on political economy, the welfare state, and labor politics, particularly in Latin America. Carnes argues that constellations of labor regulations (or codes) embody the most political of choices, and as such, a thorough understanding of how they originate and evolve is needed. Continuity despite Change makes several contributions to these literatures, and, in particular, to studies of labor codes in the region.
First, as Carnes notes, labor regulation is not just interchangeable with other welfare state policies and institutions; it merits its own analysis. Latin America is home to some of the most protective labor codes in the world, more protective than the level of development of countries in the region would imply. There is a tendency among students of the region to view the period following democratization and the implementation of market-oriented reforms (the mid-to-late 1980s onward) as resulting in the weakening of many of these protections. As the author notes, however, what is striking about the region is both how little labor codes have actually changed over time within countries and how much they differ across countries. He also makes a compelling case that earlier studies of labor codes have focused much attention on particular regulations or interludes of reform, ignoring how individual and collective labor law fit together, and how these combinations endure over time.
Carnes argues that the skill distribution of the workforce, and its organizational capacity, combine to produce four possible typologies of labor regulation: market or unregulated, professional, encompassing, and corporatist. The first type of code exhibits little to no regulation of labor, the second features protections for individual workers but little in the way of collective protections, the third features collective protections but little in the way of individual ones, and the last one protects workers both individually and collectively. The skill distribution of the labor force better explains the individual dimension of regulation, with the organizational capacity a better explanator of the collective dimension. In the author’s study, three countries exemplify, respectively, the second, third, and fourth configurations: Chile, Peru (after the 1990s), and Argentina. Carnes argues that once a certain combination of skills and collective organization sets in motion a particular combination of individual and collective labor regulations, it is very difficult for workers, employers, and governments to deviate from this equilibrium (p. 78). As a result, countries with substantial numbers of skilled workers (Chile and Argentina) will see demands for more regulation of the employment contract, and countries where workers are well organized will see them demand more prerogatives as a collective (Argentina).
The author marshals an impressive amount of data to make his case, ranging from quantitative indicators on 23 different types of regulations for 18 countries at 3 discrete periods (the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s) to extensive economic and sociological data on the countries singled out for in-depth analysis. Carnes also uses a mixed-methods approach to test his theory, combining quantitative analysis of the regulatory indices with three carefully chosen case studies. The econometric analyses model the determinants of cumulative, individual, and collective labor regulation, and also selection into the three relevant categories of labor regulation. The case studies trace the politics of labor regulation over more than a century of developments. All throughout, the author is careful to weight the contributions of alternative factors, such as government partisanship (leftist or conservative) and political regime (democratic or authoritarian).
Continuity despite Change joins a number of studies shedding light on the workings of political economy using the varieties of capitalism approach. As such, the study shares with this approach a few important characteristics: the primacy of economics over politics in explaining the origins of political developments, an assumption of path dependence and continuity, and the placement of countries into categories that are at once exhaustive and governed by self-sustaining equilibria. At times in his analysis, Carnes relaxes some of these strictures. He lets the reader know in the first chapter, for example, that labor law outcomes may not simply be affected by skill distributions and organizational capacity; the former may in turn affect the very distribution of skills and labor power that give rise to labor law configurations in the first place.
Readers might question, however, the validity of the some of the assumptions the author makes. The supposition of equilibrium in labor regulations, it seems at times, robs important actors of their agency. Reflecting on Argentina’s labor relations during the four periods of Peronist rule, for example, Carnes (p. 187) writes that “in each configuration, a significant sector of organized labor has continued to have both the specific skill levels for the nation’s desired economic development and growth and the organizational capacity to remain a critical political actor.” Through all its economic trials and tribulations, however, can it be assumed that Argentine’s elites and workers agreed on a “desired level of economic development and growth”? In figure 1.1, moreover, Carnes claims that the initial distribution of skills in country i gives rise to labor laws governing individual labor relations over t time periods. Yet he concludes by foreshadowing the possibility that skill levels (and union organization) may change over time in ways that could affect labor regulation (p. 197). Is it wise to treat skill distributions as fixed over long periods of time in countries that were buffeted by profound transformations such as import substitution industrialization and globalization?
Similarly, the author treats the organizational capacity of laborers as “independent of skill levels, deriving simply from the size and cohesiveness of unions or other worker collectives” (p. 37). Yet a close reading of his case studies and other work leads to the conclusion that the presence of skilled workers affects labor organization, as these workers tend to reach out to unskilled workers, who are notoriously difficult to organize, and create successful cross-class coalitions. There is also a lack of precision in the theory: How much time has to pass before the antecedents of skill distribution and worker organization place a country into a particular regulatory configuration?
We read, for example, that Peru did not evolve its “encompassing” regulatory profile until a series of reforms undertaken in the early 1990s relaxed its individual laws while expanding collective protections. For most of the twentieth century, Peru is described as a country with a very unskilled and, crucially, weakly organized labor force. Why then would Peru evolve protective individual labor laws for any portion, albeit small, of its labor force? Once these regulations are in place, moreover, is it accurate to attribute the reforms of the early 1990s to union organization? Peru’s collective labor laws seem to have been a response to the relaxation of individual labor regulations, not so much to an increase in labor’s collective power.
That being said, a lot of work in the varieties of capitalism vein has examined developed democracies. Relatively few scholars have ventured outside of this terrain and into the realm of less developed countries. Continuity despite Change is a welcome addition in this regard, contributing to our understanding of labor, the welfare state, and Latin American political economy.
