This is an archived version of the PW Sources newsletter from Saturday, June 29, 2024. Sign up to receive PW Sources directly to your inbox here.

BOLIVIA

In an attempted coup, an irregular deployment of troops led by General Juan José Zuñiga stormed the presidential palace in Bolivia on Wednesday night, only to retreat three hours later. The following day, supporters gathered around President Luis Arce, whose popularity has plunged amid an economic crisis and deepening tensions with former President Evo Morales.

In a 2009 paper, ARINDRAJIT DUBE, ETHAN KAPLAN, and SURESH NAIDU look at coups against governments that had nationalized a considerable amount of foreign investment, and estimate gains for multinationals that stood to benefit from the regime change:

“The qualitative evidence on links between business and coup planners is substantial. First, much of the early CIA leadership was recruited from Wall Street. A 1945 report on the CIA’s precursor by Colonel Richard Park claimed that the “hiring and promotion of senior officers rested not on merit but on an old boy network from Wall Street” (Weiner 2007, p. 7). Secondly, there was direct contact between the companies that had been nationalized and the CIA. For example, at the time of the coup planning against Arbenz, three high ranking members of the executive branch of government had strong connections with the United Fruit Company. Alan Dulles, a former member of the board of directors of the United Fruit Company, was Director of the CIA. Thomas Dudley Cabot held at different times the positions of Director of International Security Affairs in the State Department and CEO of the United Fruit Company. His younger brother, John Moore Cabot, was secretary of Inter-American Affairs during much of the coup planning in 1953 and 1954. Besides the fact that Anglo-Iranian was a majority state-owned company, the company met with CIA agent (and later historian) Kermit Roosevelt, who alleged in his 1954 history that the initial plan for the coup was proposed by the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. In Belgium, the royal court and the powerful bank Societe Generale tied together a social and financial network of colonial officials and businesses. De Witte writes that “the incontrovertible political conclusion is that the political class, including the [Belgian] court, had a direct material interest in the outcome of the Congo crisis” (De Witte 2001, p. 37). Most directly, the minister of African Affairs, a key instigator and planner of Operation Barracuda, Harold d’Aspremont-Lyden was the nephew of Gobert d’Aspremont-Lyden who was an administrator for Union Mini`ere. The Senate Church Committee reported that the CIA held meetings with U.S. multinationals involved in Chile on a regular basis, even to the point of ITT (whose board included John McCone, a former director of the CIA) notoriously offering the CIA $1 million to overthrow Allende’s government (Weiner 2007). In short, social links between the government officials responsible for the coups and financial interests are well-documented. Secret plans for regime change could have easily made it into the ears of financial actors who, even if not directly connected to the affected companies, could arbitrage this information on the market.”

+  “Despite the threat lithium extraction poses to the communities surrounding Salar de Uyuni, ethnographer Revette often encountered the general sentiment that ‘this time it’s different.’ ” Youssef Al Bouchi and Brett R. Caraway on the obstacles to state-led lithium industrialization and how Bolivia risks re-inscribing its subordinate position as a raw material exporter. Link.

+ “Evo Morales’s lithium project was presented as a succesful example of post-neoliberalism. However, ten years later, lithium has become the center of huge controversy due to delays in the different project phases and the technology selected.” By Daniela Sanchez-Lopez. Link.

+  “The government of Evo Morales chose to cancel contracts with firms from Germany and China, due to protests in Potosí demanding royalties. The now ex-president even attributes his overthrow to foreign interest in controlling the mineral.” By Rocío Lloret Céspedes. Link. And see Sergio Herrera Deza on state-led development in Bolivia and its pilot contracts with the Chinese consortium CBC. Link.

NEW RESEARCHERS

Collective Bargaining

IHSAAN BASSIER is a postdoctoral research economist at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In a working paper, he uses union collective bargaining in South Africa to present a theoretical framework of wage transmissions from covered to noncovered firms.

From the paper:

“Bargaining councils have been a central institutional feature of the South African labour market since at least 1981 when Apartheid restrictions on Black worker unionization were significantly repealed (see Bhorat, Westhuizen, and Goga (2009) and Budlender and Sadeck (2007) for overviews). A bargaining council refers to a collection of employer and employee unions from a particular industrial and geographic area which meets over workplace issues. It is established by applying to the country’s Department of Labour under the main criterion that the applicant unions collectively represent 30% of employees in the covered area. One of the most important functions of bargaining councils is to negotiate collective bargaining agreements, which set minimum wages by occupation, though supplementary wages can be establishment-specific. The collective bargaining agreements vary in period, often three years,
but sometimes shorter and renewed annually or even longer. As in other industrial relations settings, there is a set procedure for negotiations between parties, beginning with consultations with members. While strikes during negotiations may occur, final agreements often preclude strikes and lockouts for the duration of the contract. Prescribed wage increases are most often indexed to inflation and specified as percentage increases applicable to all workers. Working conditions are also negotiated, though union surveys suggest wages are by far the most important item (NALEDI, 2006). After an agreement is reached, the bargaining council may apply for extension (routinely granted) by government mandate to non-party firms falling within its scope. Finally, enforcement is monitored by the bargaining councils which employ inspectors and to which unions may report noncompliant employers.”

+ + +

+  “The 2003 UFCW strike was very damaging to the union. One of the main lessons was that it was no longer possible for locals to negotiate in isolation from other parts of the country.” New on PW, Andrew Elrod interviews John Marshall of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Locals 324 & 3000 on the Kroger-Albertsons merger and past waves of consolidation within the retail grocery industry. Link.

+  “Hungary’s bid for battery supremacy is political, not economic. Throughout the past fourteen years, Viktor Orbán has learned that catering to the German automotive industry can protect his regime from EU censure.” Also new on PW, Pálma Polyák on Hungary’s role in Europe’s EV industry. Link.

+  On July 1, at 4pm EDT, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Phenomenal World will host an online conversation between Noah Gordon, David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times, and Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay of the Polycrisis. Link to register.

+  “If we assume the number of noncombatant men killed equals the number of women killed, which is equivalent to about half of the roughly 14,000 adult male deaths, we can estimate that around 80 percent of the Gazans killed have been civilians.” By Adam Gaffney. Link.

+  Linda Calabrese, Rhys Jenkins, and Lorena Lombardozzi introduce a special issue of The European Journal of Development Research that examines developmental dynamics between Global China and countries that are host to the Belt and Road Initiative. Link.

+  “Inferences about the evolution of Treasury market depth, and hence liquidity, are largely invariant with respect to measurement decisions that go into market depth calculations.” By Michael Fleming, Isabel Krogh, and Claire Nelson. Link.

+  Examining the American Chamber of Commerce as a key source of information for US embassies, Calvin Thrall identifies a new avenue through which informational lobbying can influence foreign policy. Link.

+  Robert Muggah and Katherine Aguirre detail new trends expressed by recent homicide data for cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Link.

+  “When SunZia is completed and running at full blast, it will generate roughly 1 percent of the country’s electricity needs. After that, to fully decarbonize the electricity sector, we will need to run it all back ninety-nine more times.” By Robinson Meyer. Link.

+  Christina Eckes examines the compatibility of the current Energy Charter Treaty and of its reformed text with the normative and regulatory autonomy of the EU. Link.

+  “The energy crisis of the early 1970s briefly opened up a radically new horizon of energetic possibilities that played out differently around the world. For India, that energy crisis did not begin with the famous Arab oil embargo of 1973. Instead, like many poor oil-importing nations, it experienced the first oil shock as merely one component of a broader climate-food-energy emergency that reverberated throughout the political system. This crisis brought a twinned set of fateful changes. By June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had resorted to imposing a constitutional dictatorship—the Emergency—for the first and only time in independent India’s existence, one among a series of coups and authoritarian takeovers that swept the Global South. Less noticed was a second transformation with planetary ramifications. Rising popular expectations collided with the energy crisis to impel a state-led embrace of coal, despite elite reservations about the environmental damage that would follow.” By Elizabeth Chatterjee. Link.

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org