Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

Features contributions from leading scholars
Provides an authoratative introduction
Provides new organizational data and comparative analysis to draw cross-national comparisons and lessons
Provides a clear theoretical framework

Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

Description

Both parties and interest groups matter to democracy. Historically, examples of close relationships between the two abound. But perhaps the best known because it was supposedly the most intimate and politically important is the relationship between left-of-centre parties and trade unions. Whether rooted in a shared history, culture and ideology or more a 'marriage of convenience', it is widely believed that their relationship helped socialist, social democratic, and labour parties win power and ensured the working class achieved huge gains in terms of full employment, the welfare state and labour market regulation in the post war period. In recent decades, however, it has been widely argued that the links between left-of-centre parties and trade unions have declined as their collaboration has become less mutually beneficial, not least as a consequence of structural changes in the economy and labour market.
This volume interrogates, qualifies, and even challenges that widespread assumption. Based on a brand new dataset, including organizational data gathered by a cross-national team of experts, it uncovers and explores what turns out to be considerable variation in the strength of contemporary organizational links between left-of-centre parties and unions in twelve different countries that have been democracies since at least the mid -to late-1940's. Testing a series of hypotheses on the importance and the impact of particular political systems and socio-economic factors, and on the costs and benefits for both parties and unions, detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis suggests that left-of-centre party-trade union links are stronger where trade unions are larger, denser, and more unified and where parties are less able to rely on the state to finance their organizational activities and electoral campaigns. Traditional partners that still have fairly strong links with each other seem to have greater incentives than others to maintain those links. Moreover, it remains the case that the links between parties and unions matter in policy terms.

Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

1:The Relationship between Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions, Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale
2:Mapping Party-Trade Union Relationships in Contemporary Democracies, Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Tim Bale, and Simon Otjes
3:The Australian Labor Party and the Trade Unions: 'til Death Do Us Part'?, Phil Larkin and Charles Lees
4:A Dying Embrace? Interlocked Party-union Directorates in Austria's Cartel Democracy, Kurt Richard Luther
5:Finland: Strong Party-union Links under Challenge, Tapio Raunio and Niko Laine
6:Left-wing Parties and Trade Unions in France, Nick Parsons
7:Growing Apart? Trade Unions and Centre-left Parties in Germany, Tim Spier
8:Parties and Labour Federations in Israel, Ronen Mandelkern and Gideon Rahat
9:Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in Italy: From Party Dominance to a Dialogue of the Deaf, Liborio Mattina and Mimmo Carrieri
10:The Legacy of Pillarization: Trade Union Confederations and Political Parties in the Netherlands, Simon Otjes and Anne Rasmussen
11:Two Branches of the Same Tree? Party-union Links in Sweden in the 21st Century, Jenny Jansson
12:Strong Ties between Independent Organizations. Unions and Political Parties in Switzerland, Roland Erne and Sebastian Schief
13:No Place Else To Go: The Labour Party and the Trade Unions in the UK, Paul Webb and Tim Bale
14:Still So Happy Together? The Relationship between Labour Unions and the Democratic Party, Christopher Witko
15:The Relationship between Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade unions in Contemporary Democracies, Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Tim Bale, and Simon Otjes
16:Variations in Party-union Relationships: Explanations and Implications, Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Tim Bale, and Simon Otjes

Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

Author Information

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Professor of Political Science, University if Oslo, and Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern is Professor of Political Science at the University if Oslo. Her work on political parties and interest groups has appeared in multiple edited volumes and journals and she is the author of two monographs in English on Norwegian political parties. Currently, she is the principal investigator on a new comparative research project on party-interest group relationships in contemporary democracies.

Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London where he specialises in party politics in Britain and Europe. He is the author of books on the Conservative and Labour Parties and on European Politics, and writes about politics for several newspapers and comments on current affairs on both television and radio. He is currently directing a project on party membership in the UK.

Contributors:

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, University of Oslo.
Tim Bale, Queen Mary University of London.
Mimmo Carrieri, Sapienza University of Rome.
Roland Erne, University College Dublin.
Jenny Jansson, Uppsala University.
Niko Laine, University of Tampere.
Phil Larkin, University of Canberra.
Charles Lees, University of Bath.
Kurt Richard Luther, Keele University.
Ronen Mandelkern, Tel Aviv University.
Liborio Mattina, University of Triest.
Simon Otjes, University of Groningen.
Nick Parsons, Cardiff University.
Gideon Rahat, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Anne Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen.
Tapio Raunio, University of Tampere.
Sebastian Schief, University of Fribourg/Switzerland.
Paul Webb, University of Sussex.
Christopher Witko, University of South Carolina.

Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

Reviews and Awards

"That cross-national variations exist has in fact been suggestedelsewhere (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2010), butin Left-of Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the TwentyFirst Century the editors Allern and Bale, plus a string ofcontributing country experts, make a solid and creativecontribution to actually show it." - Jonas Hinnfors, Party Politics

Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Tim Bale

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