Parties and Unions in the New Global Economy. By Katrina Burgess. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 224p. $27.95.

In Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela during the 1980s and 1990s, labor-backed political parties in power adopted market-oriented reforms that strained the parties' alliances with their union base, generating a “loyalty dilemma” for labor leaders. In response, unions in all three countries initially pursued strategies of demand making based on norms that had traditionally governed their interactions with the party (“norm-based voice”). Over time, however, labor leaders' responses to the loyalty dilemma diverged. Katrina Burgess explains why. She argues that whether unions chose norm-based voice, norm-breaking voice, or exit depended on two main factors: the relative power of the party and workers to punish labor leaders for disloyal behavior, and the party's capacity to act autonomously from its own government.