ABSTRACT
Recent labor research within political science has maintained this preference for organized labor over studies of workers or the working class. Yet while national politics remains important, globalization pressures and marketization processes have shifted the focus of labor studies in two directions: downward toward the rm or industry-level, and outward toward transnational spaces and beyond the nation-state. In part these shifts re ect the declining presence of unions in traditional political arenas. Unfortunately this has also meant that labor has come to occupy an increasingly marginalized place within political science. However, developments such as the resurgence of unions under left governments; the persistence of authoritarian legacies in labor institutions, laws, and policies; and the largely unexplored politics of the informal sector all pose challenging research questions that merit the attention of political scientists.
