Labor as a Pro-Democracy Actor in Egypt and Brazil

Abstract

For the past two decades neoliberalism as a political and economic model became the main panacea of globalization, reshaping a lot of relations on the international level as well as within the boundaries of nation-states. While a lot of the literature discussed the disintegrating effects of neoliberalism on collective action, this paper investigates and documents an opposite pattern. Contrary to the case of many Latin American countries, where the advent of neoliberalism coupled with ensuing democratization processes have demobilized a lot of collective actors prompting the now famous question: “where have all the movements gone?” In the case of many Middle Eastern countries, the opposite dynamic seem to be unraveling. That is, political and economic impacts of neoliberalism seem to be prodding long-dormant actors to a cycle of collective contention.