Nadja Mosimann, University of Geneva
Abstract
Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems from 2011 to 2016 and the Swiss Electoral Studies from 2011, this paper explores how union membership increases electoral demand for redistribution in Western Europe. I hypothesize that union members are more likely than non-union members to translate redistribution support into voting for the Left even if they lack political sophistication, and that union members are more likely than non-union members to prioritize economic over cultural preferences by voting for the Left even if they oppose the Left’s inclusionary immigration policy. The empirical analysis based on multinomial logit models shows that union membership generally increases voters' likelihood to support the Left. Among redistribution supporters, union membership enables those with little political knowledge to emulate the vote choice of politically informed voters, and prevents those with anti-immigration attitudes from culturally realigning their vote choice.
Introduction
All over Western Europe, income inequality has significantly risen over the past three dec-ades. Even though several economic, political, and institutional factors fuel this develop-ment, research has shown that the almost ubiquitous decline in union strength is highly asso-ciated with rising levels of inequality (e.g., OECD 2011, Pontusson 2013, Kristal and Cohen 2016). To the extent that the union membership effect on electoral demand for redistribu-tion is a positive one, the massive drop in unionizaredistribu-tion across Western Europe appears to be highly relevant when addressing the puzzle of why it is that we do not observe more cases of democratically elected governments responding to the rise in inequality by introducing new redistributive policies (see Pontusson 2013).
I believe the positive effect of union membership on electoral demand for redistribution to be threefold: First, union membership increases redistribution support among high-income individuals known for high political participation rates (Mosimann and Pontusson 2017).
Second, union membership raises turnout among low-income individuals likely to support redistribution but known for low political participation rates (for the US, see Kerrissey and Schofer 2013). And third, union membership boosts voting for left-wing parties in pursuit of redistributive politics among redistribution supporters. While the first two effects have re-ceived some attention in the political economy literature, the effect of union membership on the voting behavior of redistribution supporters has to my knowledge not been analyzed so far. In this article, I thus ask: Are union members more likely to translate redistribution sup-port into voting for left-wing parties than non-union members?
In a recent article, Arndt and Rennwald (2016) have shown that union members continue to vote for the Left despite the fact that radical right-wing parties try to mobilize voters around issues related to immigration and even though unions not historically linked to left-wing parties have gained importance in recent years.1 According to Arndt and Rennwald, two
mechanisms explain this finding: Ties between unions and left-wing parties remain strong in most West European countries, and unions shape their members' political attitudes in a way that makes them susceptible to support left parties. In this article, I argue that union mem-bership also increases electoral support for the Left because of two memmem-bership effects among redistribution supporters that I label enlightenment and saliency.
According to the enlightenment effect of union membership, unionized redistribution sup-porters are more likely to vote for parties that reflect their redistribution preferences than non-unionized ones because union membership is associated with exposure to political in-formation relevant to party choice. The endorsement of political parties and dissemination of political information by unions have been shown to help voters determine where parties fall on the ideological spectrum relative to their own position (see Fantasia 1988, Dixon, Ros-cigno, and Hodson 2004). I will argue that such cues are especially important for voters lack-ing political sophistication and when it comes to linklack-ing redistribution preferences to party choice because "members will perceive unions as custodians of their economic interests and therefore a reliable source of information" (Iversen and Soskice 2015: 1792).
According to the saliency effect of union membership, union members are more likely than non-union members to prioritize redistribution preferences over preferences on other issues such as immigration when cross-pressured in their vote choice, that is, if no party represents more than one of their preferences. Conversely, recent contributions have underlined the importance of attitudes regarding immigration for the vote choice of (non-unionized) indi-viduals (e.g., Frank 2004, Kriesi et al. 2008, Finseraas 2012). Since attitudes towards immigra-tion, so the argument goes, outweigh economic preferences, opponents of immigration cast their vote in favor of radical right-wing parties irrespective of their redistribution prefer-ences. The support for left-wing parties consequently decreases (among non-unionized
vot-ers) despite persisting levels of redistribution support (see Roemer, Lee, and Van der Straeten 2007). I will argue that unionized redistribution supporters are less likely to cultural-ly realign their vote even when opposing immigration because union members "think about economic issues as a major consideration in their vote [choice]" (Francia and Bigelow 2010:
142).
I draw, first, on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) from 2011 to 2016 for six West European countries to analyze how union membership affects vote choice among politically informed and politically uninformed redistribution supporters, whereby vote choice refers to their propensity to vote for a left-wing, center-right or radical right-wing party, as well as their likelihood to abstain. Based on data from the Swiss Electoral Study (Selects) for 2011, I explore, second, how union membership conditions vote choice among redistribution supporters with ant-immigration attitudes and those with pro-immigration attitudes. Results from multinomial logit models show that union membership increases support for the Left and decreases support for the radical Right among redistribu-tion supporters – especially among politically uninformed ones and those opposing immigra-tion. Unionized redistribution supporters seem indeed likely to possess the information nec-essary for a vote choice reflecting their economic preferences irrespective of how politically informed they are otherwise, and redistribution preferences seem indeed likely to determine the vote choice of union members even when they oppose immigration.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows: The next section outlines the theoreti-cal argument and presents several hypotheses. I then present the data, operationalization, and statistical method employed in this article. After presenting and discussing the empirical find-ings, I finish with some concluding remarks.
Theory and hypotheses
Only a few recent studies have examined the effect of redistribution preferences on individu-als' vote choice. They invariably find, however, that redistribution support is an important determinant of vote choice and renders individuals more likely to vote for left-wing parties (e.g., Fossati and Häusermann 2014, Rueda and Stegmueller 2014). These parties emphasize redistributive politics to a higher degree than parties in the center or to the right of the polit-ical spectrum (e.g., Korpi and Palme 2003, Allan and Scruggs 2004) and individuals are as-sumed to evaluate possible economic outcomes associated with competing parties based on their economic preferences and information regarding these outcomes (see Duch and Ste-venson 2008).
Yet, existing research invests little in an explanation of how individuals obtain the political knowledge necessary for such an informed vote choice. The acquisition of political knowledge is costly and cognitively demanding, and the majority of voters have been repeat-edly shown to lack political sophistication (e.g., Bartels 1996, Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996).
Moreover, most recent studies of electoral behavior assume that attitudes over immigration or the nation rather than economic preferences inform individuals' vote choice (e.g., Kriesi et al. 2008, Kitschelt and Rehm 2014). As I will argue below, union membership seems a plau-sible source of political information, and union members are likely to prioritize economic preferences over immigration attitudes if preferences on these two dimensions cross-pressure voters in their party choice. Union membership thus arguably alters voting patterns among redistribution supporters.
Before I discuss these effects of union membership among redistribution supporters, it seems important to note that union membership is not only likely to affect the political be-havior of redistribution supporters but redistribution preferences themselves. In a recent article, Mosimann and Pontusson (2017) have shown that union membership induces
redis-tribution support among individuals across all income bands because union members inter-nalize the distributive norms created by unions' solidaristic behavior and rhetoric towards wage compression. Union membership effects on electoral demand for redistribution are, however, unlikely exhausted by this effect on preference formation. It seems rather plausible that union membership is also associated with translating these preferences into votes for specific parties.
Before focusing on redistribution supporters, it seems equally important to note that union membership might, moreover, increase individuals' likelihood to vote for a left party and decrease their likelihood to abstain or to vote for a party in the center or to the right of the political spectrum irrespective of their redistribution preferences (H1). On the one hand, the decision to join a union might not be entirely independent from leftist predispositions (see Ebbinghaus, Göbel, and Koos 2011, Hadziabdic and Baccaro 2016). On the other hand, unions might directly mobilize their members for specific parties (see Francia and Bigelow 2010, Kerrissey and Schofer 2013) and unions' endorsement of specific parties is likely to inform the vote choice of union members (see Brady and Sniderman 1985, Rapoport, Stone, and Abramowitz 1991). Resulting from historical ties between unions and left-wing parties (e.g., Przeworksi and Sprague 1988, Huber and Stephens 2001) or the congruence between the platforms of left parties and the political agenda of unions, most unions are likely to en-courage members to vote for the Left. Even though Christian or professional unions are quite important in some countries and less likely to mobilize for the Left than Socialist un-ions, the latter remain the dominant type of labor organization in Western Europe (see Arndt and Rennwald 2016).
As has been shown in the literature, redistribution supporters are more inclined to vote for a left-wing party and less inclined to vote for a party in the center or to the right of the
politi-cal spectrum than redistribution opponents (e.g., Fossati and Häusermann 2014). The posi-tive effect of union membership on left-wing voting and its negaposi-tive effect on voting for parties in the center or to the right of the political spectrum might thus be larger among redistribution opponents than redistribution supporters (H2) in as far as the leeway to in-crease support for the Left and dein-crease support for other parties is arguably bigger among redistribution opponents than redistribution supporters.
With the type of data this article uses, it is not possible to completely distinguish between membership effects resulting from electoral mobilization by unions and membership effects resulting from leftist voters' self-selection into unions. All results in this article are, however, reported with and without a control variable for individuals' ideological self-placement (see Mosimann and Pontusson 2017). If union members are more supportive of left-wing parties and less supportive of other parties when I control for ideology, the idea that union mem-bership is not a mere proxy for having a leftist ideology becomes more credible and vice versa.
Union membership, political information, and redistribution supporters' vote choice
As mentioned, union membership seems a plausible source of political information on which a vote choice that reflects redistribution support is based. Union members are not only likely to actively acquire political information but also likely to be passively exposed to such infor-mation. As Iversen and Soskice (2015: 1790) have argued in a recent article, individuals ac-tively cultivate political knowledge if social incentives to do so are present. These incentives are strongly linked to membership in social networks in which political discussions occur and being politically informed furthers one's reputation such as union membership (Iversen and Soskice 2015; see also Przeworksi and Sprague 1988, Ahlquist and Levi 2013).
Although redistribution supporters that have invested in the costly acquisition of political knowledge will vote for a party reflecting their redistribution preferences irrespective of un-ion membership status and the effect of unun-ion membership on vote choice is thus limited to the effects discussed under H1 among these individuals, union membership seems an im-portant source of electoral enlightenment where redistribution supporters with little political knowledge are concerned. Research has shown that it is possible for uninformed voters to emulate the political behavior of informed ones if "they receive a credible signal from a source whose preferences are known" (Larcinese 2007: 389, see also, e.g., Lupia 1992, Grofman and Norrander 1990). Even union members who are otherwise uninformed about politics are prone to be incidentally exposed to such signals: Unions have been shown to actively target political information pertaining to party platforms and other election-related information at their members in the run-up to an election (e.g., Kerrissey and Schofer 2013).
For the US Presidential Election in 2004, for instance, "some 92% of union members in battleground states reported that they had received political information from their union in the form of a pamphlet, flyer or letter, while 88% reported that they had received political information from a union newspaper, magazine or newsletter" (Francia and Bigelow 2010:
141). In addition, union members are also likely to be exposed to political information rele-vant to party choice from their union peers (see Iversen and Soskice 2015).
Redistribution supporters not willing or able to become actively informed about politics are thus likely to acquire some form of specific political knowledge within unions that is relevant to a vote choice reflecting economic preferences. Unionized redistribution supporters are consequently more likely to vote for left parties and less likely to abstain or to vote for par-ties in the center or to the right of the political spectrum than non-unionized redistribution supporters as discussed under H1 and differences across membership status should be espe-cially pronounced among politically uninformed voters (H3) since politically unsophisticated
non-union members lack the incidental exposure to political information that politically un-sophisticated members have.
Union membership, immigration attitudes, and redistribution supporters' vote choice
Research on the influence of redistribution preferences on vote choice has been mainly ne-glected in recent years because many studies of electoral behavior assume economic policies to be more and more constrained by factors exogenous to national political systems and party choice therefore realigned along attitudes over the cultural dimension (e.g., Kriesi et al.
2008, Kitschelt and Rehm 2014). Especially radical right-wing parties running on a platform that emphasizes exclusionary immigration policies have been found to benefit from this cultural realignment by capitalizing on voters' anti-immigration attitudes (e.g., Mudde 2007, Akkerman and De Lange 2012). Since the saliency of economic preferences on the decision to support a radical right-wing party has been shown to be low (e.g., Oesch 2008), the radical Right is likely to win over voters with anti-immigration attitudes even if they simultaneously support redistribution (see Ivarsflaten 2005, Arzheimer 2012).
Finseraas (2012) has identified a significant share of the electorate as displaying such cross-cutting preferences when it comes to redistribution and immigration, that its, as supporting redistribution while opposing immigration. He has also shown these voters to be significant-ly less likesignificant-ly to vote left than voters with pure leftist preferences, that is, those supportive of redistribution and immigration. Left-wing parties in pursuit of redistribution and inclusionary immigration policies are thus directly competing with radical right-wing parties opposed to redistribution and supportive of exclusionary immigration policies where this non-negligible group of voters is concerned. In as far as preferences on the cultural dimension trump pref-erences on the economic dimension in the electorate at large, left-wing parties are likely to
lose this competition among non-union voters despite persisting levels of redistribution sup-port.
Union members are, by contrast, not only likely to display pure leftist preferences, they are also likely to base their vote choice on preferences on the economic dimension rather than preferences on the cultural dimension if they have cross-cutting preferences on these dimen-sions after all. Historically, unions might have tried to control the supply of labor by restrict-ing immigration (see Penninx and Roosblad 2000), but unions have been shown to heavily invest in anti-prejudice campaigns in recent years and the increasingly pro-immigration rhet-oric of unions has been proven to shape the immigration attitudes of their members towards more inclusionary preferences (e.g., Donnelly 2014, Maraki and Longhi 2013). As mentioned, voters with leftist predispositions might, moreover, be more inclined to join unions to begin with.
Voters with pure leftist preferences on the economic and cultural dimensions will vote for the Left irrespective of union membership status and the effect of union membership on vote choice will thus be limited to its effects discussed under H1 among these individuals.
Conversely, union membership seems likely to increase the saliency of redistribution prefer-ences for the vote choice of voters with cross-cutting preferprefer-ences. Union members should be less easily "distracted" (De La O and Rodden 2008) from voting according to their eco-nomic preferences by the radical Right’s agenda focusing on immigration because unionized voters are exposed to political information that typically focuses on economic issues in the run-up to an election as discussed under H2, and because unions have been shown to actively discuss economic preferences with members during election campaigns (see Francia and Bigelow 2014). Union members are thus likely inclined to think of redistribution as an im-portant issue when deciding which party to vote for. In line with this argumentation, Francia
and Bigelow (2014) have shown that union members are most likely to cite economic issues as their top concern before an election and consequently more likely to vote left than non-union members because the latter cite moral values, that is, social and cultural wedge issues such as immigration, as the issue most important to them.
Unionized redistribution supporters are consequently more likely to vote for left parties and less likely to abstain or to vote for parties in the center or to the right of the political spec-trum than non-unionized redistribution supporters as discussed under H1 and differences across membership status with regard to left-wing and radical right-wing voting should be especially pronounced among voters with cross-cutting preferences (H4).
Data and variables
I rely on the fourth module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) to test the first three hypotheses.2 CSES pools national election studies based on a common module of survey questions (for more information, see cses.org) and CSES 4 contains information on 29 elections held between 2011 and 2016. Given the different historical trajectories of labor movements in various regions and the diverse types of elections covered by CSES, I restrict cases in a first step to lower house parliamentary elections and West European coun-tries with predominantly Socialist labor movements. In a second step, all councoun-tries in which parties across the entire left-right spectrum are present, and in which radical right-wing par-ties have a vote share substantial enough to test the hypotheses are selected among the re-maining cases. The six cases included in the analyses are thus Austria (election held in 2013), Germany (2013), Greece (2012), Norway (2013), Sweden (2014), and Switzerland (2011). The largest union confederation in each of these countries has close ties to the respective
I rely on the fourth module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) to test the first three hypotheses.2 CSES pools national election studies based on a common module of survey questions (for more information, see cses.org) and CSES 4 contains information on 29 elections held between 2011 and 2016. Given the different historical trajectories of labor movements in various regions and the diverse types of elections covered by CSES, I restrict cases in a first step to lower house parliamentary elections and West European coun-tries with predominantly Socialist labor movements. In a second step, all councoun-tries in which parties across the entire left-right spectrum are present, and in which radical right-wing par-ties have a vote share substantial enough to test the hypotheses are selected among the re-maining cases. The six cases included in the analyses are thus Austria (election held in 2013), Germany (2013), Greece (2012), Norway (2013), Sweden (2014), and Switzerland (2011). The largest union confederation in each of these countries has close ties to the respective