IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v83y1989i02p481-501_08.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Union Organization in Advanced Industrial Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • Wallerstein, Michael

Abstract

I suggest a new explanation of cross-national differences in unionization rates: the size of the labor force. Size matters because the gains unions are able to achieve in collective bargaining depend on the proportion of substitutable workers who are organized, while the costs of organizing depend in part on the absolute number to be recruited. The comparison of the costs and benefits of organizing new workers yields the conclusion that unions in larger labor markets will accept lower levels of unionization. Statistical analysis of cross-national differences in unionization rates among advanced industrial societies in the late 1970s indicates that the size of the labor force and the cumulative participation of leftist parties in government explain most of the variance.

Suggested Citation

  • Wallerstein, Michael, 1989. "Union Organization in Advanced Industrial Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 481-501, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:83:y:1989:i:02:p:481-501_08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400083337/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jonas Pontusson, 2013. "Unionization, Inequality and Redistribution," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 797-825, December.
    2. Daniele Checchi & Jelle Visser, 2002. "Pattern persistence in european trade union density," Departmental Working Papers 2002-01, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    3. Lewkowicz Jacek & Lewczuk Anna, 2017. "An Institutional Approach to Trade Union Density. The Case of Legal Origins and Political Ideology," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2(49), pages 35-49, December.
    4. Holmlund, Bertil & Lundborg, Per, 1999. "Wage bargaining, union membership, and the organization of unemployment insurance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 397-415, September.
    5. Michael Kremer & Benjamin A. Olken, 2009. "A Biological Model of Unions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 150-175, April.
    6. Agell Jonas, 2002. "On the Determinants of Labour Market Institutions: Rent Seeking vs. Social Insurance," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 3(2), pages 107-135, May.
    7. Joel Rogers, 1995. "United States: Lessons from Abroad and Home," NBER Chapters, in: Works Councils: Consultation, Representation, and Cooperation in Industrial Relations, pages 375-410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp4 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Agell, J., 2000. "On the Determinants of Labour Market Institutions: Rent-sharing vs. Social Insurance," Papers 2000:16, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    10. Cruz-Martinez, Gibran, 2017. "Is there a Common Path that could have Conditioned the Degree of Welfare State Development in Latin America and the Caribbean?," SocArXiv 2y3mb, Center for Open Science.
    11. Bob Hancké, 1993. "Trade Union Membership in Europe, 1960–1990: Rediscovering Local Unions," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 593-613, December.
    12. Hyman, Richard, 2001. "Trade union research and cross-national comparison," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 757, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Schnabel, Claus & Wagner, Joachim, 2003. "Trade Union Membership in Eastern and Western Germany: Convergence or Divergence?," IZA Discussion Papers 707, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Marianna Belloc, 2009. "International Specialization and Labor Unions: Evidence from OECD Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 34-50, February.
    15. Henning Finseraas & Marianne Røed & Pål Schøne, 2020. "Labour immigration and union strength," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 3-23, March.
    16. Robert Grafstein, 2000. "Employment, Party Economic Performance, and the Formation of Partisan Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 325-351, July.
    17. Kim, Jaewon, 2006. "The Determinants of Labor Market Institutions: A Panel Data Study," Research Papers in Economics 2006:10, Stockholm University, Department of Economics, revised 06 Dec 2006.
    18. Belot, M.V.K., 2001. "Why is the Employment Protection Stricter in Europe than in the US?," Other publications TiSEM 1b89c06b-a254-4d69-8d7f-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Jeremy Waddington & Reiner Hoffmann & Jens Lind, 1997. "European trade unionism in transition? a review of the issues," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 3(3), pages 464-497, November.
    20. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    21. Knack, Stephen, 2001. "Trust, assocational life, and economic performance," MPRA Paper 27247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Schnabel, Claus, 2002. "Determinants of trade union membership," Discussion Papers 15, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    23. Gibrán Cruz-Martínez, 2021. "Mapping Welfare State Development in (post) Neoliberal Latin America," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 175-201, August.
    24. Schnabel, Claus & Wagner, Joachim, 2003. "Determinants of Trade Union Membership in Western Germany: Evidence from Micro Data, 1980-2000," IZA Discussion Papers 708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:83:y:1989:i:02:p:481-501_08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.