Inert and Insignificant? On the Electoral Relevance of Labor Market Outsiders

In this article we are challenging a core assumption of the insider/outsider theory, namely that it is rational for social democratic parties to pursue inegalitarian social policies for the well-protected core of workers because the more vulnerable part of labor is unlikely to participate in elections and, thus, politically irrelevant. We propose three arguments why social democrats might be well-advised to consider outsiders an attractive constituency. First, sheer group size: atypical employment has been on the rise for several decades now, whereas well-protected insiders are in decline. Second, the actual magnitude of the insider-outsider participation gap might in fact be smaller than commonly assumed. Third, despite differences in social policy preferences, existing disparities do not right from the start prevent any common ground in a social democratic policy agenda. By empirically examining relative group share, the rate of political participation and the propensity to vote for social democrats, we gauge outsiders’ electoral potential for social democratic parties. We demonstrate that the assumption of inert and politically irrelevant outsiders does not hold. In some countries, the vulnerable part of labor even entirely caught up with well-protected insiders in terms of electoral relevance. Political apathy of labor market outsiders is therefore an unlikely and insufficient explanation to social democratic parties’ policy choices in favor of one or the other part of labor.