Labor Rights and Multinational Production

Description

Labor Rights and Multinational Production investigates the relationship between workers' rights and multinational production. Mosley argues that some types of multinational production, embodied in directly owned foreign investment, positively affect labor rights. But other types of international production, particularly subcontracting, can engender competitive races to the bottom in labor rights. To test these claims, Mosley presents newly generated measures of collective labor rights, covering a wide range of low- and middle-income nations for the 1985-2002 period. Labor Rights and Multinational Production suggests that the consequences of economic openness for developing countries are highly dependent on foreign firms' modes of entry and, more generally, on the precise way in which each developing country engages the global economy. The book contributes to academic literature in comparative and international political economy, and to public policy debates regarding the effects of globalization.

Layna Mosley is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Global Capital and National Governments, and her articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Comparative Political Studies, among other publications. Her past research has been funded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.

'By providing a comprehensive new database on collective rights violations, the book offers a powerful tool for additional statistical analysis. By highlighting the diverse impacts of different sectors, firms, and types of multinational organisation in labor rights, it opens several new lines for future research. By problematizing the impact of foreign policy debates at both the domestic and international levels. Industrial and Labor Relations Review