Reforming Asian Labor Systems

Frederic C. Deyo is Professor of Sociology at SUNY Binghamton. He is the editor of The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, also from Cornell, and the author of Dependent Development and Industrial Order and Beneath the Miracle: Labor Subordination in the New Asian Industrialism.

• IntroductionPart I. Labor Systems, Economic Development, and Market Reform1. Labor Systems: Social Processes and Regulatory Orders2. Explaining Regulatory Change3. Reforming Labor Systems: Neoliberalism, Reregulation, and Social CompensationPart II. Deregulating Asian Labor Systems4. Export-Oriented Industrialization and State-Enterprise Reform: Restructuring Employment5. External Liberalization of Trade and Investment6. The Deregulatory Face of Labor ReformPart III. The Tensions of Reform7. Compromising Economic and Social Agendas8. Political Tensions of Reform: Labor Opposition and Public DisorderPart IV. Addressing the Tensions of Reform9. The Reregulatory Face of Labor Reform: Institutionalization, Social Compensation, and Developmental Augmentation10. Disciplining Labor and Rebuilding the Labor Process11. Small Enterprises, Supplier Networks, and Industrial Parks: Creating High-Skill Developmental Labor Systems12. Contesting Reform: The Influence of Labor PoliticsConclusionReferencesIndex

The conclusion of this book that 'Asian labour (is) playing a somewhat more forceful role in national policymaking than is usually acknowledged' (p. 233) is a useful contribution to the public record. It is a good counterweight to some of the crude argument that Asian industrialisation is just 'sweated labor' where coercion and low wages undercut the supposed fair wages and democracy of North American and Oceanic manufacturing.- Howard Guille (Asian Studies Review)