Compared to What? The Ucla Comparative Labor Law Project and the Future of Comparative Labor Law

34 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2007

See all articles by Harry W. Arthurs

Harry W. Arthurs

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School

Date Written: January 2007

Abstract

The UCLA comparative labor law project (1965-1978) exemplified and in some ways anticipated subsequent debates within comparative law circles in general, and amongst comparative labor scholars in particular. Both disciplines have been destabilized by the decentering of the state as a result of globalization and neo-liberalism and also as a result of developments in legal theory and methodology. The rebuilding of comparative labor law as a discipline depends on its ability to take these new developments into account. But paradoxically, to do so moves scholars farther and father away from "law" as it was traditionally understood, as well as from "labor" which is verging on anachronism as a sociological descriptor and political actor. The project of comparative labor law must become part of an intellectually ambitious and highly complex study of the changing political, economic, social, cultural and psychological terrain of work relations.

Keywords: labor, globalization, neo-liberalism

JEL Classification: K31, K33

Suggested Citation

Arthurs, Harry W., Compared to What? The Ucla Comparative Labor Law Project and the Future of Comparative Labor Law (January 2007). CLPE Research Paper No. 2/2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=961291 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.961291

Harry W. Arthurs (Contact Author)

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School ( email )

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

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