Challenging hegemony: Labor, capital, and democracy in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

This is a comparative study designed to induce conclusions generated from an analysis of the labor-capital relationship now forming in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Both nations face severe economic crisis and are composed of very weak social actors. The situation favors a turn toward authoritarian regimes. This study takes as its primary focus the potential for labor to direct national development priorities. The context of this paper is transformation in the social relations of production. Workers in the post-Soviet world are challenged by a global neo-liberal restructuring accelerated by the end of the Cold War. Nonetheless, workers are mounting resistance, somewhat unevenly, depending on their social and structural position. It will be found that workers in Ukraine are in an advantageous position to affect the direction of market reform. Kazakh workers, however, are stratified by ethnic factors that diminish mobilization potential to influence government policy.