This book provides a theory of the logic of survival of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of the most resilient autocratic regimes in the twentieth century. An autocratic regime hid behind the facade of elections that were held with clockwise precision. Although their outcome was totally predictable, elections were not hollow rituals. The PRI made millions of ordinary citizens vest their interests in the survival of the autocratic regime. Voters could not simply throw the 'rascals out of office' because their choices were constrained by a series of strategic dilemmas that compelled them to support the autocrats. The book also explores the factors that led to the demise of the PRI. The theory sheds light on the logic of 'electoral autocracies', among the most common type of autocracy and is the only systematic treatment in the literature today dealing with this form of autocracy.

The European Union (EU) may be presiding over the most successful democracy promotion program ever implemented by an international actor. Among postcommunist states with a credible EU membership perspective, we can see a significant - though far from complete - convergence toward liberal democracy. This is all the more interesting since ten years ago many of these states had illiberal or authoritarian regimes. I focus in this article on the sources of political change in previously illiberal regimes before and after 'watershed elections,' especially in the Western Balkans. I argue that over time the EU's leverage strengthened the hand of liberal forces against illiberal ones by way of four mechanisms: creating a focal point for cooperation, providing incentives for adapting, using conditionality, and serving as a credible commitment for reform. Consequently, most political parties have eventually changed their agenda to make it compatible with the state's bid for EU membership. I investigate the domestic conditions that have caused these mechanisms to function only weakly in Serbia and Bosnia.

This paper was discussed at the Global Justice workshop on October 20, 2006.

Abstract of Richard Locke's "Beyond Corporate Codes of Conduct: Work Organization and Labor Standards in Two Mexican Garment Factories":

This paper presents a matched pair case study of two factories supplying Nike, the world's largest athletic footwear and apparel company. These two factories have many similarities - both are in Mexico, both are in the apparel industry, both produce more or less the same products for Nike (and other brands) and both are subject to the same code of conduct. On the surface, both factories appear to have similar employment (i.e., recruitment, training, remuneration) practices and they receive comparable scores when audited by Nike's compliance staff. However, actual labor conditions exist between these two factories. What drives these differences in working conditions? What does this imply for traditional systems of monitoring and codes of conduct? Field research conducted at these two factories reveals that beyond the code of conduct and various monitoring efforts aimed at enforcing it, workplace conditions and labor standards are shaped by very different patterns of work organization and human resource management policies.

About the Author

Richard Locke is professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also faculty director of the MIT Sloan Fellows program and co-director of the MIT Italy program. His research focuses on economic development, comparative labor relations, and political economy.

The newest volume in the acclaimed Journal of Democracy series addresses electoral systems and democracy. As the number of democracies has increased around the world, a heated debate has emerged among experts about which system best promotes the consolidation of democracy. Is proportional representation, a majoritarian system, a mixture of the two, or some other system the best for new democracies? This book compares the experiences of diverse countries, from Latin America to southern Africa, from Uruguay, Japan, and Taiwan to Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Johns Hopkins University Press

All around the world, societies are experiencing an explosion of organizations and organizing: community clubs, religious groups, social movements, as well as schools, hospitals, businesses and government agencies, increasingly take the form of complex and formal organization. Why? Why is global society recast in this format and why so fiercely?

This book explores various dimensions of the trends of expansion, formalization, and standardization of organizing worldwide by exploring such organizational legacies as accounting, business management, corporate social responsibility, and performance benchmarks. Featuring contributions from prominent academics, the book argues that these processes can be attributed to globalization and to its specific tendencies of universalism, rationalization, and rise of the modern notion of the strongly bounded and purposive social actor.

An application of institutional arguments to global issues, the book will be of interest to academics and researchers of Organization Studies, Sociology, Political Science, and Geography.