Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:53:22.610Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Building Strategic Capacity: The Political Underpinnings of Coordinated Wage Bargaining

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

JOHN S. AHLQUIST*
Affiliation:
Florida State University
*
John S. Ahlquist is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Florids State University, 513 Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, Florida32306-2230 ([email protected]).

Abstract

Encompassing labor movements and coordinated wage setting are central to the social democratic economic model that has proven successful among the nations of Western Europe. The coordination of wage bargaining across many unions and employers has been used to explain everything from inequality to unemployment. Yet there has been limited theoretical and quantitative empirical work exploring the determinants of bargaining coordination. I argue formally that more unequally distributed resources across unions should inhibit the centralization of strike powers in union federations. Using membership as a proxy for union resources, I find empirical evidence for this hypothesis in a panel of 15 OECD democracies, 1950–2000. I then show that the centralization of strike powers is a strong predictor of coordinated bargaining.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adolph, Christopher. 2006. The Dilemma of Discretion: Career Ambitions and the Politics of Central Banking. University of Washington. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Agell, Jonas. 2002. “On the Determinants of Labour Market Institutions: Rent Seeking vs. Social Insurance.” German Economic Review 3 (2): 107–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agell, Jonas, and Lommerud, Erik. 1992. “Union Egalitarianism as Income Insurance.” Economica 59: 295310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, Angeloni, Ignazio, and Etro, Federico. 2005. “International Unions.” American Economic Review 95 (3): 602–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, R. Michael, Garrett, Geoffrey, and Lange, Peter. 1991. “Government Partisanship, Labor Organization, and Macroeconomic Performance.” American Political Science Review 85 (2): 539–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baccaro, Lucio. 2000. “Centralized Collective Bargainaing and the Problem of Compliance: Lessons from the Italian Experience.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 53 (4): 579601.Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick. 2001. “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions.” World Bank Economic Review 15 (1): 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beramendi, Pablo. 2007. “Inequality and the Territorial Fragmentation of Solidarity.” International Organization 61: 783820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles. 1999. “Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies.” American Political Science Review 93: 609–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, David, Huber, Evelyne, Moller, Stephanie, Nielsen, Francois, and Stephens, John D.. 2003. “Distribution and Redistribution in Postindustrial Democracies.” World Politics 55: 193228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brant, R. 1990. “Assessing the Proportional Odds Model for Ordinal Logistic Regression.” Biometrics 46: 1171–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calmfors, Lars, and Driffill, John. 1988. “Bargaining Structure, Corporatism, and Macroeconomic Performance.” Economic Policy 3 (6): 1361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, David R. 1984. “Social Democracy, Corporatism, Labor Quiescence and the Representation of Economic Interest in Advanced Capitalist Society.” In Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism: Studies in the Political Economy of Western European Nations, ed. Goldthorpe, John H.. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Commons, John R., ed. 1926a. History of Labor in the United States. Vol. 1. New York: Beard Books.Google Scholar
Commons, John R., ed. 1926b. History of Labor in the United States. Vol. 2. New York: Beard Books.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cremer, Jacques, and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 2000. “Federal Mandates by Popular Demand.” Journal of Political Economy 108 (5): 905–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cusak, Thomas R., Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2007. “Economic Interests and the Origins of Electoral Systems.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 373–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Stephen. 1979. “Choosing between Concentration Indices: The Iso-concentration Curve.” Economica 46 (181): 6775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Stephen. 1980. “Measuring Industrial Concentration: An Alternative Approach.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 62 (2): 306–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diggle, Peter J., Liang, Kung-Yee, and Zeger, Scott L.. 2002. Analysis of Longitudinal Data. 2nd ed.New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebbinghaus, Bernhard, and Visser, Jelle. 2000. Trade Unions in Western Europe since 1945. New York: Grove's Dictionaries.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James D. 2003. “Ethnic Structure and Cultural Diversity by Country.” Journal of Economic Growth 8 (2): 195222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanagan, Robert J. 1999. “Macroeconomic Performance and Collective Bargaining: An International Perspective.” Journal of Economic Literature 37: 1150–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzese, Robert J. 2001. “Institutional and Sectoral Interactions in Monetary Policy and Wage/Price Bargaining.” In Varieties of Capitalism, ed. Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Richard B. and Gibbons, Robert S.. 1995. “Getting Together and Breaking Apart: The Decline of Centralized Collective Bargaining.” In Differences and Changes in Wage Structures, ed. Freeman, Richard B. and Katz, Lawrence F.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey. 1998. Partisan Politics in the Global Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golden, Miriam. 1993. “The Dynamics of Trade Unionism and National Economic Performance.” American Political Science Review 87 (2): 439–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golden, Miriam, and Londregan, John. 2006. “Centralization of Bargaining and Wage Inequality: A Correction of Wallerstein.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (1): 208–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golden, Miriam, Wallerstein, Michael, and Lange, Peter. 1999. “Postwar Trade Union Organization and Industrial Relations in Twelve Countries”. In Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, ed. Kitschelt, Herbert, Lange, Peter, Marks, Gary, and Stephens, John D.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Golden, Miriam, Wallerstein, Michael, and Lange, Peter. 2009. “Union Centralization among Advanced Industrial Societies: An Empirical Study.” www.golden.polisci.ucla.edu/data/. Deposited with ICPSR. Available via Dataverse.Google Scholar
Golder, Matt. 2005. “Democratic Electoral Systems Around the World, 1946–2000.” Electoral Studies 24: 103–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenhill, Brian, Ward, Michael D. and Sacks, Audrey. 2009. “A New Visual Method for Evaluating the Predictive Power of Binary Models.” In Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association. Toronto.Google Scholar
Hafer, Catherine, and Landa, Dimitri. 2007. “Public Goods in Federal Systems.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2: 253–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Peter A., and Soskice, David, eds. 2001. Varieties of Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, Peter E. 1975. “Moment Distribution in Economics: An Exposition.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 138: 423–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, Heinz, and Lau, Chistopher. 1980. “Trade Union Confederations: A Comparative Study of Identity and Strategy.” International Studies Quarterly 24 (3): 365–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Headey, Bruce W. 1970. “Trade Unions and National Wage Policies.” Journal of Politics 32 (2): 407–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heagerty, Patrick J., and Lumley, Thomas. 2000. “Window Subsampling of Estimating Functions with Application to Regression Models.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 95 (449): 197211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heagerty, Patrick J., Ward, Michael D., and Gleditsch, Kristan S.. 2002. “Window of Opportunity: Window Subseries Variance Estimators in International Relations.” Political Analysis 10 (3): 304–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heagerty, Patrick J., and Zeger, Scott L.. 1996. “Marginal Regression Models for Clustered Ordinal Measurements.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 91: 1024–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. 2006. Penn World Tables Version 6.2 [computer file].Google Scholar
Ingham, G. 1974. Strikes and Industrial Conflict: Britain and Scandanavia. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1996. “Power, Flexibility, and the Breakdown of Centralized Wage Bargaining: Denmark and Sweden in Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics 28 (4): 399436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1999. Contested Economic Institutions: The Politics of Macroeconomics and Wage Bargaining in Advanced Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2006. “New Macroeconomics and Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 425–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2009. “Distribution and Redistribution: The Shadow of the Nineteenth Century.” World Politics 61 (3)438–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. 1985. Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kenworthy, Lane. 2001. “Wage-Setting Measures: A Survey and Assessment.” World Politics 54: 5798.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenworthy, Lane. 2003. “Quantitative Indicators of Corporatism.” International Journal of Sociology 33 (3): 1044.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimeldorf, Howard, and Stepan-Norris, Judith. 1992. “Historical Studies of Labor Movements in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology 18: 495517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korpi, Walter. 1983. The Democratic Class Struggle. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lange, Peter. 1984. Unions, Workers, and Wage Regulation: The Rational Bases of Consent. In Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism: Studies in the Political Economy of Western European Nations, ed. Goldthorpe, John H.. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Laslett, J. H. M. and Lipset, Seymour Martin, eds. 1974. Failure of a Dream? Essays on the History of American Socialism. Garden City: Doubleday.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Woojin, and Roemer, John E.. 2005. “The Rise and Fall of Unionised Labour Markets: A Political Economy Approach.” The Economic Journal 115: 2867.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmbruch, Gerhard. 1979. Consociational Democracy, Class Conflict, and the New Corporatism. In Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, ed. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 2003. “Organizing Power: Prospects for the American Labor Movement.” Perspectives on Politics I (1): 4568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liang, Kung-Yee, and Zeger, Scott L.. 1986. “Longitudinal Data Analysis Using Generalized Linear Models.” Biometrika 73: 1322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mares, Isabela. 2003. The Politics of Social Risk. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marks, Gary. 1986. “Neocorporatism and Incomes Policy in Western Europe and North America.” Comparative Politics 17 (3): 253–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, Gary. 1989. Unions in Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Cathie Jo, and Swank, Duane. 2004. “Does the Organization of Capital Matter? Employers and Active Labor Market Policy at the National and Firm Levels.” American Political Science Review 98 (4): 593612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Cathie Jo, and Swank, Duane. 2008. “The Political Origins of Coordinated Capitalism: Business Organizations, Party Systems, and State Structure in the Age of Innocence.” American Political Science Review 102 (2): 181198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meltzer, Allan, and Richard, Scott. 1981. “Rational Theory of the Size of Government.” Journal of Political Economy 101: (4983).Google Scholar
Moene, Karl O., and Wallerstein, Michael. 2006. “Social Democracy as Strategy for Development”. In Globalization and Egalitarian Redistribution, ed. Gintis, Herbert and Wallerstein, Michael. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Nickell, Stephen, and Layard, Richard. 1999. “Labour Market Institutions and Economic Performance”. In Handbook of Labor Economics, ed. Ashenfelter, Orley and Card, David. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1971. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, N. R., Edmondson, R. N., and Gilmour, S. G.. 2006. “A Generalized Estimating Equation Method for Fitting Autocorrelated Ordinal Score Data with an Application in Horticultural Research.” Applied Statistics 55: 507524.Google Scholar
Rueda, David. 2008. “Left Government, Policy, and Corporatism: Explaining the Influence of Partisanship on Inequality.” World Politics 60: 349–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartori, Giovanni. 1976. Parties and Party Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scheve, Kenneth, and Stasavage, David. 2009. “Political Institutions, Partisanship, and Inequality in the Long Run.” World Politics 61 (2): 215–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitter, Philippe C. 1979. “Still the Century of Corporatism?” In Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, ed. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda, Ganz, Marshall, and Munson, Ziad. 2000. “A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States.” American Political Science Review 94 (3): 527–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soskice, David. 1990. “Wage Determination: The Changing Role of Institutions in Advanced Industrial Countries.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 6 (4): 3661.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, John D. 1979. The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism. London: MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiger, Thomas R., Barnhart, Huiman X., and Williamson, John M.. 1999. “Testing Proportionality in the Proportional Odds Model Fitted with GEE.” Statistics in Medicine 18: 1419–33.3.0.CO;2-Q>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Swank, Duane. 2006. Electoral, Legislative, and Government Strength of Political Parties by Ideological Group in Capitalist Democracies, 1950–2006: A Database. www.marquette.edu/polisci/faculty_swank.shtmlGoogle Scholar
Swenson, Peter. 1989. Fair Shares: Unions, Pay, and Politics in Sweden and West Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swenson, Peter. 1991. “Bringing Capital Back In, or Social Democracy Reconsidered: Employer Power, Cross-Class Alliances, and Centralization of Industrial Relations in Denmark and Sweden.” World Politics 43: 513–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 1993. “West-European Labor in Transition— Sweden and Germany Compared.” World Politics 46 (1): 2349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2004. How Insitutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Comparative-Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traxler, Franz. 2003. “Bargaining (De)centralization, Macroeconomic Performance, and Control over the Employment Relationship.” British Journal of Industrial Relations 41 (1): 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traxler, Franz, Kittel, B., and Blaschke, S.. 2001. National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulman, Lloyd. 1955. The Rise of National Trade Unions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Visser, Jelle. 2006. “Union Membership Statistics in 24 Countries.” Monthly Labor Review (January): 38–49.Google Scholar
Visser, Jelle. 2009. “The ICTWSS Database: Database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts in 34 Countries between 1960 and 2007.” Amsterdam: Institute for Advanced Labour Studies AIAS.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael. 1985. “Working Class Solidarity and Rational Behavior.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael. 1989. “Union Organization in Advanced Industrial Democracies.” American Political Science Review 83 (2): 481501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael. 1990. “Centralized Bargainging and Wage Restraint.” American Journal of Political Science 34 (4): 9821004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael. 1999. “Wage-Setting Institutions and Pay Inequality in Advanced Industrial Societies.” American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 649–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael, and Western, Bruce. 2000. “Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why.” Annual Review of Political Science 3 (1): 355–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Western, Bruce. 1997. Between Class and Market. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1973. Political Organizations. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Windmuller, John. 1975. “The Authority of National Trade Union Confederations: A Comparative Analysis.” In Union Power and Public Policy, ed. Lipsky, David B.. Ithaca, NY: School of Industrial Relations, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Zorn, Christopher. 2001. “Generalized Estimating Equation Models for Correlated Data: A Review with Applications.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (2): 470–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.