Explaining Public-Sector Union Mobilization: A Mixed-Methods Approach

• In Event: Business, Labor, and the State

Abstract

Public-sector unions are the hegemonic contemporary labor actor in terms of militancy and mobilization in both advanced and emergent economies. However, Political Science lacks a unified theoretical approach to study mobilization by state unions. The study of public-sector union politics has undergone divergent paths in the last fifty years, largely separated by regional (US vs. Europe) and disciplinary (American Politics vs. Comparative Politics) divides. This study proposes a stylized theory that combines (and modifies) aspects of both traditions. We argue that public-sector labor mobilization is essentially driven by the legal status of wage bargaining rights at the national and (in federal countries) subnational levels, by the likelihood of a political-exchange between government and labor, and by the state fiscal condition. Argentina between 2003 and 2019 provides an ideal laboratory to test our theoretical argument through a multilevel, mixed methods strategy, which includes comparative, statistical and case-study assessments.

Authors

• Sebastian Etchemendy, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

• German Jorge Lodola, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella