Civil society in a postwar period: Labor in the Salvadoran democratic transition

This research note seeks to offer some resolution to the theoretical disagr eements over how democratization affects civil society, specifically in a t ransition toward democracy that occurs through pacted settlements of an arm ed internal conflict. Using a comparative study over time of the labor move ment in EI Salvador, the authors demonstrate that while unions of the polit ical center and left have weakened since the signing of the Salvadoran Peac e Accords, independent labor groups show higher levels of organizing and ri ght-leaning unions have maintained nearly constant levels of organizing. Bu t the labor movement has become atomized because unions have been unable to redefine their once-common political goals to adopt other unified stances in the postwar period. The data show that the unions that have relinquished excessively politicized stances or never claimed them are the ones that su rvive and sometimes grow in the postwar environment. These findings have im plications for the nature of the emerging Salvadoran democracy and the econ omic well-being of its citizens.