Sewing resistance: Transnational organizing, global governance, and labor rights in the United States-Caribbean basin apparel industry (1990--2005)

This dissertation systematically analyzes the evidence on the rise, composition, and outcomes of the transnational anti-sweatshop movement in the Americas. It combines qualitative case studies of selected campaigns with quantitative analysis of an original database on the universe of 93 campaigns undertaken in the seven producer countries of the regional apparel industry (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic) between 1990 and 2005. Put together by a transnational coalition of unions and NGOs from the U.S. and producer countries, the campaigns have sought to fight sweatshop labor by supporting the establishment of independent unions in global apparel factories.; The dissertation has both descriptive and explanatory goals. From a descriptive perspective, it documents the structure and operation of transnational anti-sweatshop coalitions. From an analytical viewpoint, it develops and empirically tests what I call the "global governance thesis." Weaving together insights from international relations, political sociology, sociology of law, and political economy, I argue that prevailing explanations focusing solely on economic structure (the "globalization thesis") or movement infrastructure (the "global resource mobilization thesis") offer only a partial account of the emergence and outcomes of transnational mobilization. Alongside such factors, the rise and prospects of cross-border activist coalitions are decisively shaped by the intersection of national and transnational institutions characterizing global governance in a post-Westphalian world polity.; My survey of campaigns in the U.S.-Caribbean Basin apparel industry shows that inter-country and inter-campaign variation is associated with differences in multilevel institutional structures. Inter-country comparison reveals that differences in both the frequency and outcomes of transnational organizing campaigns follow closely the distribution of multilevel opportunity structures across countries.; Inter-campaign comparison provides additional support for the global governance thesis. Both "soft" governance arrangements (e.g., corporate codes of conduct) and "hard," country-specific institutional frameworks are significant determinants in logistic regression analyses of campaign outcomes. Qualitative case studies of three contrasting campaigns in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and El Salvador flesh out the mechanisms and processes underlying such association.