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Government Partisanship, Labor Organization, and Macroeconomic Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

R. Michael Alvarez ,
Geoffrey Garrett  and
Peter Lange
R. Michael Alvarez
Affiliation:
Duke University
Geoffrey Garrett
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Peter Lange
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Abstract

Governments of the Left and Right have distinct partisan economic policies and objectives that they would prefer to pursue. Their propensity to do so, however, is constrained by their desire for reelection. We argue that the ability of governments to further their partisan interests and preside over reelectable macroeconomic outcomes simultaneously is dependent on the organization of the domestic economy, particularly the labor movement. We hypothesize that there are two different paths to desirable macroeconomic performance. In countries with densely and centrally organized labor movements, leftist governments can promote economic growth and reduce inflation and unemployment. Conversely, in countries with weak labor movements, rightist governments can pursue their partisan-preferred macroeconomic strategies and achieve similarly beneficial macroeconomic outcomes. Performance will be poorer in other cases. These hypotheses are supported by analysis of pooled annual time series data for 16 advanced industrial democracies between 1967 and 1984.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 539 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1991

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