Putting an End to Ghent? The Politics of Disempowering the Unions

Abstract

One of the most discussed topics in contemporary political science concerns the question if political parties still make a substantial difference in the neoliberal era. Focusing on direct partisan effects on policy outcomes like public and social spending, most recent studies arrive at a negative answer. In this article, I challenge this view by shifting the focus to parties’ impact on the strength of organized labor, a crucial factor concerning the distribution of social power in capitalist democracies. In contrast to social democratic parties, whose ties to unions remain stronger than often acknowledged, right-wing parties with strong market-liberal convictions have an interest in accelerating union decline to further their long-term policy goals. Since labor’s organizational strength rests strongly upon its institutional power resources, those constitute a prime target for right-wing attacks on union power. The theoretical argument is tested on the basis of the Ghent system, the crown jewel among labor’s institutional power resources. The empirical analysis includes all ‘Ghent countries’ but, in order to trace the supposed causal processes, special attention is given to the Swedish case.