Conference paper
TILLY’S WARNING
Zoran Kurelić
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In his short essay, the author sets forth and comments on the provocative argument by Charles Tilly, presented in his text ‘Globalization Threatens Labor’s Rights’ (1995). Tilly’s argument focuses on the problems ensuing from the emergence of global economy. He claims that global capitalism represents a challenge to the importance of national states. Labor’s rights are protected at the level of national states; consequently, the process jeopardizing national states also threatens the rights they protect. The most intriguing part of Tilly’s theory is the link between the labor’s rights and democracy. He wants to show how the process of the democratization of the European national states went “hand in hand” with the struggle for labor’s rights. Workers were potential voters, and their movement insisted on democratization. Labor’s rights and democracy were linked during their rise and will be linked in their fall. The breakdown of the labor’s rights is the first sign of the breakdown of the Western-type liberal democracies. The author shows how Tilly’s exhortation hurts the post-socialist countries more than the functional Western-type national states.
Keywords
globalization; labor's rights; welfare state; democracy
Hrčak ID:
24330
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2002.
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