Striking Concessions from Governments The Success of General Strikes in Western Europe, 1980-2009

    Authors

    K. Hamann; A. Johnston;J. Kelly

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Comp. Polit.

    Keywords

    CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS; POLITICAL CONTEXT; DEMOCRACIES; PROTESTS; STATE; Political Science

    Abstract

    Since the early 1980s, Western European labor unions in eleven of sixteen West European countries have mobilized protesters in a rising number of general strikes, opposing policy reforms by national governments. In over 40 percent of the cases, governments ceded concessions in response. The variation in government responses to general strikes can be explained by examining properties of govermnents, such as type of government and party family. Based on an original dataset using logistic regression, analysis of the outcomes of seventy-five general strikes indicates that concessions to unions are more likely when governments rule in coalition, and are led by center or Christian Democratic parties, compared to social democratic and conservative governments. A tentative explanation for this finding is based on shifting ideological alliances in multiparty systems.

    Journal Title

    Comparative Politics

    Volume

    46

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    23

    Last Page

    +

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000324787200002

    ISSN

    0010-4159

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