Friday, March 14, 2014
Private Dining Room (Omni Shoreham)
The unequal distribution of employment protection is acquiring the qualification of cleavage in the literature. Some authors argue that non-standard workers as well as the unemployed (i.e. outsiders) are likely to vote away from certain parties due to either policy or performance reasons, while insiders will remain with dominant social-democratic parties. Surprisingly, there is little empirical evidence offering systematic proof and explanation of this cleavage. I use comparative analysis on survey data to explore under which conditions will insiders and outsiders become coherent constituencies and in which direction will they move. I argue that the employment protection framework interacts with economic performance and electoral supply to condition voters' decision. Insiders will systematically vote to social-democratic parties except in these countries where an economic boom has blurried the traditional labour/capital division. Outsiders won't be a differentiated voting group where labour market institutions are not an active factor generating an unequal distribution of employment security. Conversely, outsiders will vote along dualizing (social-democratic) parties if the cycle is widely generating employment opportunities in the form of non-standard contracts. Finally, outsiders will tend to move away from dominating parties when the ratio of job creation is relatively stable and the cost of accessing to protected jobs becomes clear for them. This move will be to the left or to the right depending on the available electoral supply.
