Where Have All the Members Gone? Globalization, Institutions, and Union Density

Abstract

There have been widespread claims in recent years about the effects of economic globalization on domestic politics and, in particular, its negative impact on wage earners and trade unions. A number of recent studies have raised serious questions about the validity of claims that the globalization of trade and financial markets leads to international convergence around a neoliberal market economic model. This article considers the impact of economic institutional arrangements on union membership trends in sixteen industrial democracies between 1960 and 1994. We find that the effects of economic globalization are marginal and conditional on particular economic institutions, which helps to explain divergent trends in union density among these countries. These differences suggest that the way national economies operate may continue to diverge.