The Electoral Consequences of General Strikes in Western Europe

The number of general strikes against governments and their (proposed) reform policies in Western Europe has been increasing since 1980. This is surprising given a background of a sharp decline in both trade union density and in the level of strike activity against employers. Previous research has examined the incidence of general strikes and the likelihood of different types of governments to grant concessions to trade unions. Here we explore the electoral consequences of general strikes. We assume that governments’ willingness to include in or exclude unions from controversial policy reforms is causally related to unions’ propensity to call a general strike. We also assume that governments are driven in part by electoral concerns when deciding on their reform strategy, and unions can use general strikes to demonstrate massive popular opposition to governmental reforms; hence, general strikes may be closely linked to electoral considerations. We use a unique dataset of West European general strikes and ask whether governing parties that experience general strikes are more or less likely to be returned to office after the next election. We employ a generalized estimating equations (GEE logit) estimator to test the effects of general strikes on the likelihood of a ruling party maintain power.  Preliminary evidence suggests the occurrence of a general strike significantly reduces the odds of the main governing party being re-elected, but does so more drastically for minority ruling governments and ruling parties in coalitions than ruling parties with a single-party majority.