Unexpected Group Alliances: Early Partnerships Between LGBT Activists & Workers

• In Event: Interest Group and Party Alliances in Historical Perspective

Abstract

While scholars have focused extensively on the important consequences of alliances between interest groups, less attention has been paid to the underlying dynamics shaping when, how, and why such groups can form alliances. This is especially true of alliances uniting groups that seemingly have little in common with each other. In this project, we aim to identify what conditions incentivize groups to work together, who leads the process, and what linkages leaders establish between groups to make alliances work. We first develop theoretical expectations about the conditions that are more or less conducive to the formation of unexpected alliances; specifically, we build a typology that identifies different combinations of factors that provide political entrepreneurs with more or less leeway to establish bonds between previously unconnected groups. Then, focusing on the forging of previously non-existent alliances between labor unions and the burgeoning LGBT rights movement in the U.S. and U.K. in the 1970s and 1980s, we argue that – under the right conditions – political entrepreneurs within groups can forge cooperation by highlighting shared threats, creating or accentuating shared ideological convictions, and building institutional ties.

Authors

• Boris Heersink, Fordham University

• Matthew Lacombe, Case Western Reserve University