Shaping the political arena: critical junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America

I Always mindful of the need to offer clear definitions, the authors consider incorporation as the "first sustained and at least partially successful attempt by the state to legitimate and shape an institutionalized labor movement" [p.161 ). the book. 1 Shaping the Political Arena has been part of a lively, expanding research program of comparative-historical analysis.This program builds on evolving conceptions of critical junctures, path dependence, and historical institutionalism.Its methodological tools are, in important measure those of small-N analysis and controlled comparison.Among the m~ny substantive themes that have been analyzed in this tradition the study of national political regimes has had a central place. 2 In