IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/105078.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

(How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?

Author

Listed:
  • Hyman, Richard
  • Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca

Abstract

International trade union organisations, like unions at national level, commonly affirm their commitment to internal democracy. But what does this mean? There exists a vast literature on union democracy, addressing the questions whether democracy in trade unions is desirable; whether it is possible; and if so, how it can be achieved. However, the focus of analysis is almost exclusively at the national (or sub-national) level, with the premise that union members are individual workers. But international unions (like many national confederations indeed) do not have individual workers as members: they are organisations of organisations. What does this imply for our understanding of union democracy? We begin our article by summarising the broader literature on union democracy, then develop an interpretation of international unions as ‘meta-organisations’. We next explore some of the implications for debates on democracy at international level, and end by asking whether theories of deliberative democracy can help in understanding the options for international union democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Hyman, Richard & Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca, 2020. "(How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105078, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:105078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105078/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:44:y:2006:i::p:533-562 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Warren, Mark E., 1996. "Deliberative Democracy and Authority," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 46-60, March.
    3. Daniel Innerarity, 2014. "Does Europe Need a Demos to Be Truly Democratic?," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 77, European Institute, LSE.
    4. Garaudel, Pierre, 2020. "Exploring meta-organizations’ diversity and agency: A meta-organizational perspective on global union federations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1).
    5. Vivien A. Schmidt, 2013. "Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and ‘Throughput’," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 61(1), pages 2-22, March.
    6. Daniel Innerarity, 2014. "Does Europe Need a Demos to Be Truly Democratic?," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 7, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    7. Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils, 2005. "Organizations and meta-organizations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 429-449, December.
    8. Adrien Thomas, 2017. "Conglomerate Unions and Transformations of Union Democracy," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(3), pages 648-671, September.
    9. Andreas Follesdal & Simon Hix, 2006. "Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 533-562, September.
    10. Torsten Geelan & Andy Hodder, 2017. "Enhancing transnational labour solidarity: the unfulfilled promise of the Internet and social media," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 345-364, July.
    11. Seeliger, Martin & Wagner, Ines, 2016. "Workers united? How trade union organizations at the European level form political positions on the freedom of services," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/16, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dongwoo Park, 2023. "Lopsided inclusion: The impact of multi‐employer bargaining and class‐based unionism on non‐regular employment in South Korea," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 110-132, March.
    2. Irene Dingeldey & Ilana Nussbaum Bitran, 2024. "The European Minimum Wage Directive – and why it is a challenge to trade unions’ but not employers’ unity," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 45(2), pages 489-510, May.
    3. Raquel Rego & Ana Espírito-Santo, 2023. "Beyond density: Improving European trade unions’ representativeness through gender quotas," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 29(4), pages 415-433, December.
    4. Lorenzo Frangi & Tingting Zhang, 2022. "Global union federations on affiliates’ websites: Forces shaping unions’ global organisational identity," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(2), pages 444-466, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Hyman & Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, 2020. "(How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 26(3), pages 253-272, August.
    2. Gumbrell McCormick, Rebecca & Hyman, Richard, 2018. "Democracy in trade unions, democracy through trade unions?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89230, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Beetz, Jan Pieter & Rossi, Enzo, 2015. "EU legitimacy in a realist key," Discussion Papers, Center for Global Constitutionalism SP IV 2015-802, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Dina Sebastião, 2021. "Covid-19: A Different Economic Crisis but the Same Paradigm of Democratic Deficit in the EU," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 252-264.
    5. Acocella, Nicola, 2020. "To Exit or not to Exit (from the EMU)?," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 73(1), pages 1-20.
    6. Christoph Engel & Luigi Mittone & Azzurra Morreale, 2024. "Outcomes or participation? Experimentally testing competing sources of legitimacy for taxation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 563-583, April.
    7. Alexander Kentikelenis & Erik Voeten, 2021. "Legitimacy challenges to the liberal world order: Evidence from United Nations speeches, 1970–2018," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 721-754, October.
    8. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2007. "Reflections on multilevel legitimacy," MPIfG Working Paper 07/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    9. Isuru Koswatte & Chandrika Fernando, 2022. "Policy Development for Crisis Management in the Context of Sri Lanka," Managing Global Transitions, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, vol. 20(3 (Fall)), pages 295-327.
    10. John R. Moodie & Viktor Salenius & Michael Kull, 2022. "From impact assessments towards proactive citizen engagement in EU cohesion policy," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 1113-1132, October.
    11. Carina I. Hausladen & Regula Hänggli Fricker & Dirk Helbing & Renato Kunz & Junling Wang & Evangelos Pournaras, 2024. "How voting rules impact legitimacy," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Marlous Blankesteijn & Bart Bossink, 2020. "Assessing the Legitimacy of Technological Innovation in the Public Sphere: Recovering Raw Materials from Waste Water," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-16, November.
    13. Katjana Gattermann & Claes H De Vreese, 2017. "The role of candidate evaluations in the 2014 European Parliament elections: Towards the personalization of voting behaviour?," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 447-468, September.
    14. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    15. Davide Però & John Downey, 2024. "Advancing Workers’ Rights in the Gig Economy through Discursive Power: The Communicative Strategies of Indie Unions," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 140-160, February.
    16. Michael Grothe-Hammer & Héloïse Berkowitz, 2024. "Unpacking Social Order: Towards a Novel Framework that Goes Beyond Organizations, Institutions, and Networks Forthcoming in Critical Sociology," Post-Print hal-04426296, HAL.
    17. Petia Kostadinova, 2015. "Improving the Transparency and Accountability of EU Institutions: The Impact of the Office of the European Ombudsman," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 1077-1093, September.
    18. Nikitas Konstantinidis & Konstantinos Matakos & Hande Mutlu-Eren, 2019. "“Take back control”? The effects of supranational integration on party-system polarization," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 297-333, June.
    19. Camille Kelbel & Virginie Van Ingelgom & Soetkin Verhaegen, 2016. "Looking for the European Voter: Split-Ticket Voting in the Belgian Regional and European Elections of 2009 and 2014," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 116-129.
    20. Daniel L. Nielson & Susan D. Hyde & Judith Kelley, 2019. "The elusive sources of legitimacy beliefs: Civil society views of international election observers," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 685-715, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Global unions; ETUC; ITUC; union democracy; meta-organisations; deliberative democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    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:ehl:lserod:105078. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.