The mixed strategy of authoritarian labor rights repression

Abstract

This study argues that institutionalized authoritarian states, those with established political parties and legislatures, tend to pursue a two-pronged strategy concerning labor rights: they severely restrict collective labor rights but moderately protect substantive labor rights at the same time. This argument leads to an expectation of a decoupling between collective labor rights protection and substantive labor rights protection in institutionalized autocracies, or a strategic bifurcation. Using a novel global panel data on labor rights, it finds that (1) institutionalized authoritarianism does not protect collective labor rights better than noninstitutionalized authoritarianisms, (2) institutionalized authoritarianism protects substantive labor rights more than noninstitutionalized authoritarianisms, and (3) better protection of collective labor rights has no impact on the protection of substantive labor rights under institutionalized authoritarianism. The findings remain largely robust to alternative estimators, measures, reduced samples, and model specifications.