Appease Workers Without Losses: Autocracy and Progressive Labor Regulations

• In Event: Autocracy and Public Policy

Abstract

Under what conditions would dictators improve labor regulations? It is well-established in the literature that economic inequality is an important demand-side factor in pushing authoritarian leaders to implement redistribution to buy off revolutionary threats. However, a more protective labor law may decrease elites' economic benefits and thus loyalty to current regimes. I argue that an ineffective court system can help dictators to balance workers' gains and elites' losses because it allows dictators to more easily control the judicial process of labor disputes to mitigate elites' distributional losses. I test this argument by conducting time-series cross-section data analysis covering 68 autocracies from 1970 to 2008. I complement my quantitative analyses with an illustrative case from the 2008 Labor Contract Law in China. This study makes contributions to the theme of autocracy and redistribution and provides a unique lens to illuminate how and why judicial institutions can matter for redistributive politics.

Author

• Hsu Yumin Wang, Emory University