Industrial Relations after the Third Wave

Abstract

The late twentieth-century wave of global democratization brought formal democracy to a greater number of countries than ever before (Doorenspleet 2005). The advent of competitive regimes in much of the Second World and parts of the Third coincided with important changes in the institutions and practices of worker representation.¹ For many labor movements, however, this has been a mixed blessing. In most if not all new democracies, labor has been afforded formal recognition as an organized interest group; worker organizations and their representatives, moreover, participate in the formulation and implementation of economic and social policies.