Examining the Political Economy of Strikes

Dr. Kerstin Hamann, Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department, and her collaborators Alison Johnston (Oregon State University) and John Kelly (Birkbeck College, University of London) published their article “Unions Against Governments: Explaining General Strikes in Western Europe,1980–2006.” The article appeared in the September issue of Comparative Political Studies, a leading journal in the field of comparative politics. The article is the first in a series emerging from a research program on the causes and consequences of widespread and massive protests against government reforms in Western Europe over the last three decades. The article argues that general strikes follow a logic that is very different from industry strikes and finds that union exclusion from the process of reforming policies, government strength, and the party position of the government can provide an initial explanation for the occurrence of general strikes.