Workplace Characteristics and Working Class Vote for the Old and New Right

Published date01 March 2017
Date01 March 2017
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12143
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12143
55:1 March 2017 0007–1080 pp. 137–164
Workplace Characteristics and Working
Class Vote for the Old and New Right
Christoph Arndt and Line Rennwald
Abstract
This article focuses on the roleof plant size for working class vote. We argue that
workplace size does matter for political behaviour. Workersin smaller plants are
less unionized and therefore base their voting decisions more strongly on their
cultural attitudes, which undermine the support for social democratic parties.
Using data from the European Social Survey(2002–2010), we find that workers
in small plants have more right-wing attitudes and, consequently, vote for new
and old right parties, contrarily to workers in larger plants. Our research points
towardsimportant structural explanations of working class support for the right
and its cross-national dierences.
1. Introduction
The working class basis of radical right parties in Western Europe has been
established in several studies over the last years (e.g. Carter 2005; Kitschelt
2007; Oesch 2008; Rydgren 2013). This phenomenon has been particularly
puzzling since the working class has traditionally been viewed as social
democracy’score clientele (e.g. Bartolini 2000). Moreover,several mainstream
bourgeois parties have recently tried to broaden their voter base by working
class votes. For instance, the Swedish Conservatives recently campaigned
as ‘Sweden’s New Labour Party’ (Oscarsson and Holmberg 2008: 68). The
Danish Liberals have outperformed the Social Democrats in recent elections
among working class voters (Stubager and Hansen 2013). Nevertheless, few
studies have systematically analysed the competition between new right, old
right and social democratic parties for working class votes (Arzheimer 2013;
van der Brug et al. 2013).1
This article brings back a classical explanation on why workers turn right:
plant size.2The link between workplacesize, the development of working class
Christoph Arndt is at Aarhus University. Line Rennwald is at the University of Amsterdam/
University of Geneva.
C
2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
138 British Journal of Industrial Relations
consciousness and political behaviour had beenfirst particularly prominent in
the Marxist tradition: Since large workplaces make the development of class
consciousness easier, workers in larger plants should therefore display higher
level of support for left-wing parties (for a critical review of this argument,
see Pontusson 1995). More generally, large plants have been considered as a
fertile ground for unionization. According to Oesch (2006: 172), ‘the size of
the workplace in which people are employed is one of the most commonly
cited factors aecting union membership’.
These arguments are especially relevant for the over-representation of
workers among the new right’s electorate (e.g. Ivarsflaten 2005; Kitschelt
2007; Rydgren 2013) in a context of the decline of large manufacturing
factories and de-unionization. Outlining some electoral consequences of
deindustrialization, Pontusson (1995) showed that the employment share of
large plants was positively correlated with social democratic parties’ vote
share.Accordingly, the decreasing share of largemanufacturing plants and the
restructuring of the economy towards smaller production units have become
a structural disadvantage for social democratic parties.
Despite being often recognized as an important element for working class
mobilization, few studies have empirically tested the eect of plant size at
the individual level (see the discussion by Pontusson 1995). Our article fills
this gap and further explores the micro-foundations of the plant size eect
by looking at union coverage, workplace antagonisms, and political attitudes
as mediators. Plant size is closely linked to unionization: it is an important
predictor of it. We focus primarily on plant size since it is antecedent to
unionization. By additionally analysing unionization as a mediating variable,
we get a better picture of the respective impact of both variables.
In a nutshell, we argue first that in small-sized workplaces, there is less
antagonism between employer and employees than in larger ones. Similarly,
workers in smaller plants are typically less unionized and more sceptical
towards trade unions compared to their colleagues in larger plants (e.g.
Bryson and Gomez 2005; Goss 1988; Oesch 2006: 172; Pontusson 1995).
This then hampers the development of common economic interests among
the workers in smaller plants and strengthens the eects of authoritarianism
and scepticism towards immigration.It is postulated that unions would have a
causal eect in muting anti-immigration attitudes (Lipset 1981). These eects
finally foster right-wing vote choice among labour in smaller plants to the
disadvantage of social democratic parties who fare better in larger unionized
plants.
Our article proceeds as follows. We first review the literature and develop
our theoretical arguments and hypotheses. The next section presents the data
and the methods used. Our analysis afterwards proceeds in two steps. On the
basis of the European Social Survey (2002–2010), we first examinethe eect of
workplace size on political attitudes,and then on vote choice, in 16 European
countries. We first find that employees and workers in smaller workplaces are
more economically right-wing, as well as more authoritarian and restrictive
C
2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.

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