Leverage of the Weak: Labor and Environmental Movements in Taiwan and South Korea by Hwa-Jen Liu

Abstract

Reviewed by: Leverage of the Weak: Labor and Environmental Movements in Taiwan and South Korea by Hwa-Jen Liu Jennifer Jihye Chun Hwa-Jen Liu, Leverage of the Weak: Labor and Environmental Movements in Taiwan and South Korea (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2015) Leverage of the Weak begins with a provocative puzzle. Despite their many similarities in terms of size, population density, and emphasis on export-led industrialization in the latter decades of the 20th century, South Korea and Taiwan have starkly contrasting trajectories when it comes to labour and environmental movements. In South Korea, the labour movement was the early riser, waging militant strikes against injustice and repression at the hands of authoritarian developmental state regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. The environmental movement did not flourish until industrial trade unions secured the institutional basis of their movement power in the late 1980s and 1990s amidst popular struggles for democratization. In contrast, the early decades of state-led industrialization in Taiwan catalyzed a robust environmental movement led by farmers and fishers who waged frequent, repeated, and widespread protests against land and water contamination due to industrial waste pollution. Labour disputes remained unorganized and isolated until the late 1980s when workers in large enterprises began waging large strikes, in part, to challenge the long-standing influence of the party-state in trade union affairs. What explains these “reverse movement sequences” in Taiwan and South Korea, two countries that Liu describes as “perfect twins” of the post-war developmental order? Interrogating “movement sequences” – that is, when and how different movements come into being – is well-trodden terrain in the social movement literature. However, most studies focus on a single movement in multiple places or multiple movements in a single place. Liu’s study breaks new empirical ground by examining multiple movements in different national contexts, utilizing an impressive range of comparative time series protest data, in-depth interviews, and archival sources. Liu’s study also advances new theoretical ground by challenging the assumption that labour movements necessarily precede environmental movements, an occurrence that is based upon the particular histories of early industrialization in Europe. Building upon Karl Polanyi’s arguments about the rise of social protectionist movements against capitalism, [End Page 378] Liu argues that different movements emerged at different periods and in different forms in Taiwan and South Korea to challenge the corrosive effects of marketization and commercialization. In addition, she demonstrates that the way in which early-riser movements consolidated their power against capital and the state had profound legacies for future movements when they invoked similar grievances and tactics, albeit for different aims and constituencies. By showing how the power-maximization strategies of early-riser movements matter for shaping the terrain of future struggles, Liu brilliantly moves from a capital-centred understanding of Polanyi’s double movement – one that views social protectionist movements as mere reactions to deepening capitalist commodification – to a movement-centred analysis that views struggles to protect the dignity of human and ecological life as a major obstacle to unfettered capital accumulation. To discern exactly how and under what conditions social movements shape the dynamics of change, Liu develops a sophisticated analytics of power that connects Gramsci ’s framework about different levels of political struggle (e.g. economic-corporate, economic class, and hegemonic) to the cultivation of distinct forms of movement power. Leverage – or what Liu describes as positional power, enables movement actors to secure concessions in the context of unequal yet interdependent power relations. Ideological power enables movement actors to use the power of ideas to undermine hegemonic discourses. Given these differences, Liu points out that labour movements are more likely to wage initial struggles at the economic-corporate and economic class levels – in the form of demands for wage increases and union rights – to secure gains against more powerful opponents; whereas environmental movements rely on the media and intellectuals to challenge common sense notions about pollution and public safety to win public support for their struggles. While these forms of power result in the cultivation of important strategic resources, be they intellectual expertise or rank-and-file militancy, they also create sobering dilemmas for early-riser movements as they are...