Industrial Relations Ideas in Politics: A Quantitative Analysis of Political Party Manifestos

An animated introduction to an article published in Industrial Relations by Ryan Lamare and John Budd. As ideational actors, political parties use their manifestos to convey important information to candidates and voters about numerous issues that matter to the public during elections. Political manifestos are therefore useful documents for capturing ideational thinking on issues relevant to industrial relations that are unadulterated by necessary legislative or other political compromises required to govern. We propose three channels through which ideas enter into manifestos, and examine the fraction of manifesto content devoted to pro-worker and anti-union statements to measure the importance of these ideas. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project and other sources spanning as many as 54 countries, 75 years, and 1,132 parties, we find strong evidence that manifesto ideas about workers matter, and that they have changed over time and across countries. We see clear evidence that these ideas are affected by differences in party characteristics as well as political and economic circumstances. We also find that pro-worker ideas are rewarded during elections.
Published article: http://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12296
Non-paywall version: http://jbudd.csom.umn.edu/RESEARCH/ma...
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