Leverage of the Weak: Labor and Environmental Movements in Taiwan and South Korea
Hwa-Jen Liu
Abstract
Despite of similarities in colonial heritages, authoritarian rule, and a breakneck speed of industrialization, despite of similar levels of grievances over abused labor power and natural environment, why did two countries as structurally similar as Taiwan and Korea produce distinct sequences—in reverse order—of the rise of labor and environmental movements? The story that emerges in Leverage of the Weak is of the realization, and the limit, of two types of movement power under the dominance of developmental states and corporate economies. Leverage of the Weak goes beyond the conventional discu ... More
Despite of similarities in colonial heritages, authoritarian rule, and a breakneck speed of industrialization, despite of similar levels of grievances over abused labor power and natural environment, why did two countries as structurally similar as Taiwan and Korea produce distinct sequences—in reverse order—of the rise of labor and environmental movements? The story that emerges in Leverage of the Weak is of the realization, and the limit, of two types of movement power under the dominance of developmental states and corporate economies. Leverage of the Weak goes beyond the conventional discussion of “the power of the weak” and “disruptive power,” and is the first book to systematically pursue cross-movement and cross-national comparisons on East Asia. By shedding new light on the interconnection of movement emergence, sequences, and trajectories, Leverage of the Weak discloses the material foundation of labor-environment alliances and leads academics and activists alike toward a reassessment of the past and the future of labor and environmental movements, two forces that have significantly shaped social life—and our imaginary pictures of social life—in modern times.
Keywords:
Labor,
environment,
leverage power,
ideology,
movement power,
movement trajectory,
comparative method,
East Asia
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816689514 |
| Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: May 2016 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816689514.001.0001 |
