Edward Brudney

This book project analyzes the intersections of legal and labor history in Argentina during the tumultuous 1970s, a period that saw economic turmoil, armed revolutionary struggle, and the bloodiest dictatorship in national history (the Process of National Reorganization, PRN). While most scholarship has emphasized the PRN’s campaign of state terror, "Changing the Rules of the Game" argues that the law remained a critical site of contestation and negotiation throughout this period. By studying the creation and enforcement of labor legislation under civil and military administrations, I show how state authorities, employers, trade union leaders, and rank-and-file workers all sought to impose, adapt to, and/or resist new “rules of the game” aimed at remaking daily experiences of citizenship.