A Strike against the Left: General Strikes and Public Opinion of Incumbent Governments in Spain
| Author | Alison Johnston,Kerstin Hamann,Bonnie N Field |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721989926 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721989926
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(3) 837 –864
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321721989926
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A Strike against the Left:
General Strikes and Public
Opinion of Incumbent
Governments in Spain
Alison Johnston1, Kerstin Hamann2
and Bonnie N Field3*
Abstract
Political links between labor unions and leftist political parties have weakened over the last four
decades in Western Europe, reducing the former’s influence on the latter. Unions’ prolonged
organizational decline suggests that their capacity to pressure left parties should become more
limited. We examine whether unions can use general strikes to influence public opinion when left
parties in government pursue austerity policies. Executing a distributive lag time series analysis
of quarterly public opinion data from 1986 to 2015 in Spain, we find that Socialist governments
incurred significant public opinion penalties in the wake of a general strike. Not only did PSOE
prime ministers lose confidence from the public, but they also witnessed a significant reduction in
voting intentions. In contrast, Spain’s conservative governments incurred no such public opinion
penalties in response to general strikes. We conclude that general strikes carry significant political
costs for left governments that stray from union ideals.
Keywords
general strikes, labor unions, left governments, public opinion, Spain
Accepted: 29 December 2020
Introduction
Globalization and the crisis of Keynesianism prompted analyses of the consequences of
weakening organizational links between labor unions and leftist political parties in
Western Europe (Allern and Bale, 2017; Piazza, 2005). These weakening links are
1Political Science Program, School of Public Policy, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
2School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
3Department of Global Studies, Bentley University, Waltham, MA, USA
*Authors are listed in reverse alphabetical order. All authors contributed equally to the study.
Corresponding author:
Kerstin Hamann, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, 4297
Andromeda Loop N., Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
Email: Kerstin.Hamann@ucf.edu
989926PSX0010.1177/0032321721989926Political StudiesJohnston et al.
research-article2021
Article
838 Political Studies 70(3)
particularly important considering the decline of social democracy and the center-left’s
poor electoral performances across developed democracies. Historically, unions and left
parties were linked through policy coordination, political cooperation and endorsement,
and, in some cases, dual membership policies. Unions were also important mobilizers of
some of the left’s (traditional) constituencies—lower-income workers, whose turnout in
elections is more precarious than that of the middle class (Pontusson and Rueda, 2010).
Consequently, unions were often able to shape the behavior of leftist parties because of
their ideological affinities and capacity to buoy left electoral support among low-income
voters (Leighley and Nagler, 2007).
Unions’ organizational decline, including membership and density losses, and their
weakening collective bargaining power handicap their ability to pressure left govern-
ments, particularly those pursuing pro-market reforms (Culpepper and Regan, 2014).
The organizational delinking has generally rendered unions less able to mobilize
peripheral voters, who do not regularly vote (see Gray and Caul, 2000). At the same
time, left parties have moved toward the center to attract new constituencies. These
wider processes of delinking have diminished labor’s direct influence on traditionally
left parties.
Against this backdrop, do unions still have tools to remain politically relevant in
Western Europe? Social pacts with governments are one way unions have influenced
policies. Yet, pacts have become less frequent since the Great Recession (Baccaro and
Galindo, 2018). In contrast, general strikes have occurred with increasing frequency over
the past two decades. General strikes are national-level work stoppages, by workers in
multiple industries, against the government in its role as a legislator (see Hyman, 1989).
Unions use general strikes to mobilize against governments when they legislate conten-
tious welfare, social, or employment policy reforms.
This article investigates whether general strikes present a way for unions to influence
governments. A potential mechanism is strikes’ effects on public opinion. We analyze
whether general strikes diminish the public’s approval of the government, and thereby
signal to the government that it may face electoral trouble if it proceeds with its policy
agenda. In the context of delinking, we specifically assess whether general strikes inflict
differentiated public opinion penalties on left compared to right governments. We antici-
pate that the public opinion effects of strikes will be more detrimental for left govern-
ments than right ones, because they emphasize to the left’s traditional base and the public
more broadly that they are pursing policies that run counter to the left’s historical com-
mitment to preserving the welfare state and hurt those parties’ voters disproportionately.
Our empirical analysis focuses on Spain from the mid-1980s to 2015. Spain is a useful
case to examine the political costs of general strikes. Similar to other Western European
countries, it witnessed the formal delinking of left parties and unions in the 1980s, most
notably between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Workers’ General Union (UGT).
Spain’s unions also call general strikes with some regularity, and its political system pro-
vides comparatively clear lines of responsibility for political decisions, allowing us to
assess whether general strikes affect left and right governments differently. Our distribu-
tive lag time series analysis of quarterly public opinion data demonstrates that general
strikes dampen approval of the incumbent government and intentions to vote for the gov-
erning party when the left is in power. Right governments face no public opinion penal-
ties when strikes occur under their watch. This suggests that general strikes are indeed an
effective tool for unions to influence public opinion of governments, but only when the
left governs.
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