Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-n7qbj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-10T19:34:50.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reducing Unequal Representation: The Impact of Labor Unions on Legislative Responsiveness in the U.S. Congress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

Michael Becher Open the ORCID record for Michael Becher [Opens in a new window]  and
Daniel Stegmueller Open the ORCID record for Daniel Stegmueller [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has long been recognized that economic inequality may undermine the principle of equal responsiveness that lies at the core of democratic governance. A recent wave of scholarship has highlighted an acute degree of political inequality in contemporary democracies in North America and Europe. In contrast to the view that unequal responsiveness in favor of the affluent is nearly inevitable when income inequality is high, we argue that organized labor can be an effective source of political equality. Focusing on the paradigmatic case of the U.S. House of Representatives, our novel dataset combines income-specific estimates of constituency preferences based on 223,000 survey respondents matched to roll-call votes with a measure of district-level union strength drawn from administrative records. We find that local unions significantly dampen unequal responsiveness to high incomes: a standard deviation increase in union membership increases legislative responsiveness towards the poor by about six to eight percentage points. As a result, in districts with relatively strong unions legislators are about equally responsive to rich and poor Americans. We rule out alternative explanations using flexible controls for policies, institutions, and economic structure, as well as a novel instrumental variable for unionization based on history and geography. We also show that the impact of unions operates via campaign contributions and partisan selection.

Type
Special Section: Working Class Blues or Reds?
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 92 - 109
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

A list of permanent links to Supplemental Materials provided by the authors precedes the References section.

*

Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/L6KU0D

For valuable feedback on previous versions, we are grateful to John Ahlquist, Lucio Baccaro, Pablo Beramendi, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Konstntin Käppner, David Rueda, Patricia Kirkland, Jonas Pontusson, Elizabeth Rigby, Karine Van Der Straeten, and participants at the annual meetings of APSA (2017); MPSA (2018); University of Geneva workshops on Unions and the Politics of Inequality (2018) and Unequal Democracies (2019); IPErG seminar at University of Barcelona; the Instituto Carlos III-Juan March; the Nuffield Politics seminar at University of Oxford; IE University; and IAST. Becher acknowledges IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the Investments for the Future (Investissements d’Avenir) program, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010. Stegmueller’s research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2066657).

References

Ahlquist, John. 2017. “Labor Unions, Political Representation, and Economic Inequality.” Annual Review of Political Science 20:409–32.10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-023225CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlquist, John S., and Levy, Margaret. 2013. In the Interests of Others. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Political Science Association. 2004. “American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality.” Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy. Perspectives on Politics 2(4): 651–66.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Jones, Philip Edward. 2010. “Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll-Call Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 54(3): 583–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Schaffner, Brian F.. 2014. “Does Survey Mode Still Matter? Findings from a 2010 Multi-Mode Comparison.” Political Analysis 22(3): 285–303.10.1093/pan/mpt025CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F. 2011. “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups.” Journal of Politics 73(2): 412–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F., and Moe, Terry M.. 2016. “Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public-Sector Labor Laws.” American Political Science Review 110(4): 763–77.10.1017/S0003055416000484CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Douglas R. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Michael J. 2016. “Representing the Preferences of Voters, Partisans, and Voters in the US Senate.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80(1): 225–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry 2016. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. 2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2017. “Political Inequality in Affluent Democracies: The Social Welfare Deficit.” Unpublished manuscript, Vanderbilt University, CSDI Working Paper 5-2017. (www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/includes/WorkingPaper52017.pdf).Google Scholar
Becher, Michael, and Stegmueller, Daniel. 2019. “Global Economic Shocks, Local Economic Institutions, And Legislative Responses.” Unpublished manuscript. Presented at the 77th Annual Conference the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 4-7.Google Scholar
Becher, Michael, Stegmueller, Daniel, and Kaeppner, Konstantin. 2018. “Local Union Organization and Law Making in the US Congress.” Journal of Politics 80(2): 539–54.10.1086/694546CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belloni, A., Chernozhukov, V., and Hansen, C.. 2014. “Inference on Treatment Effects after Selection Amongst High-Dimensional Controls.” Review of Economic Studies 81:608–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatti, Yosef, and Erikson, Robert S.. 2011. “How Poorly Are the Poor Represented in the U.S. Senate?” In Who Gets Represented?, ed. Enns, Peter K. and Wlezien, Christopher, 223–246. New York: Russel Sage Foundation,Google Scholar
Campante, Filipe R. 2011. “Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions.” Journal of Public Economics 95(7-8): 646-56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1961. Who Governs? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, Christopher. 2013. “Social Context and Economic Biases in Representation.” Journal of Politics 75(3): 773–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsässer, Lea, Hense, Svenja, and Schäfer, Armin. 2018. “Government of the People, by the Elite, for the Rich: Unequal Responsiveness in an Unlikely Case.” Unpublished manuscript, MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/5.Google Scholar
Enns, Peter K. 2015. “Relative Policy Support and Coincidental Representation.” Perspectives on Politics 13(4): 1053–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 2015. “Income Inequality and Policy Responsiveness.” Annual Review of Political Science 18:11–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feigenbaum, James, Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander, and Williamson, Vanessa. 2018. “From the Bargaining Table to the Ballot Box: Political Effects of Right to Work Laws.” Manuscript. NBER Working Paper 24259. (www.nber.org/papers/w22637).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavin, Andrew. 2012. “Inequality and Policy Representation in the American States.” American Politics Research 40(1): 29–59.10.1177/1532673X11416920CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavin, Patrick. 2018. “Labor Union Strength and the Equality of Political Representation.” British Journal of Political Science 48(4): 1075–91.10.1017/S0007123416000302CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavin, Patrick, and Hartney, Michael T.. 2015. “When Government Subsidizes Its Own: Collective Bargaining Laws as Agents of Political Mobilization.” American Journal of Political Science 59(4): 896–911.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franko, William W., Kelly, Nathan J., and Witko, Christopher. 2016. “Class Bias in Voter Turnout, Representation, and Income Inequality.” Perspectives on Politics 14(2): 351–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, Richard B., and Medoff, James. 1984. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 2012. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press and Russel Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin, and Page, Benjamin I.. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12(3): 564–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2010. Winner-Take-All Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander. 2018. “Policy Feedback as Political Weapon: Conservative Advocacy and the Demobilization of the Public Sector Labor Movement.” Perspectives on Politics 16(2): 364–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander, Mildenberger, Matto, and Stokes, Leah. 2019. “Legislative Staffers and Representation in Congress.” American Political Science Review 113(2): 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Seth J., and Huber, Gregory A.. 2019. “On the Meaning of Survey Reports of Roll-Call “Votes”.” American Journal of Political Science 63(3): 611–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, Barry T., and Berger, Mark C.. 1984. “Union Membership Determination and Industry Characteristics.” Southern Economic Journal 50(3): 665–79.10.2307/1057983CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Thomas J. 2006. “Geographic Spillover of Unionism.” Manuscript, NBER Working Paper 12025.Google Scholar
Honaker, James, and Plutzer, Eric. 2016. “Small Area Estimation with Multiple Overimputation.” Unpublished manuscript. (http://hona.kr/papers/files/smallAreaEstimation.pdf).Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1999. Contested Economic Institutions: The Politics of Macroeconomics and Wage Bargaining in Advanced Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2015. “Information, Inequality, and Mass Polarization: Ideology in Advanced Democracies.” Comparative Political Studies 48(13): 1781–813.10.1177/0010414015592643CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalla, Joshua L., and Broockman, David E.. 2016. “Campaign Contributions Facilitate Access to Congressional Officials: A Randomized Field Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 60(3): 545–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Nathan, Morgan, Jana, Witko, Chris, and Enns, Peter. 2019. “Buying Words: How Campaign Donations Influence the Congressional Economic Agenda.” Presented at 9th Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association. Belfast, June 20–22.Google Scholar
Kim, Sung Eun, and Margalit, Yotam. 2017. “Informed Preferences? The Impact of Unions on Workers’ Policy Views.” American Journal of Political Science 61:728–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kochan, Thomas A., Yang, Duanyi, Kimball, William T., and Kelly, Erin L.. 2019. “Worker Voice in America: Is There a Gap between What Workers Expect and What They Experience?” ILR Review 72(1): 3–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lax, Jeffrey R., and Phillips, Justin H.. 2009. “How Should We Estimate Public Opinion in the States?” American Journal of Political Science 53(1): 107–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lax, Jeffrey R., Phillips, Justin H., and Zelizer, Adam. 2019. “The Party or the Purse? Unequal Representation in the US Senate the Party or the Purse? Unequal Representation in the US Senate.” American Political Science Review 113(4): 917–40.10.1017/S0003055419000315CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, David S., Moretti, Enrico, and Butler, Matthew J.. 2004. “Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U. S. House.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(3): 807–59.10.1162/0033553041502153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighley, Jan E., and Oser, Jennifer. 2018. “Representation in an Era of Political and Economic Inequality: How and When Citizen Engagement Matters.” Perspectives on Politics 16(2): 328–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighley, Jan E., and Nagler, Jonathan. 2007. “Unions, Voter Turnout, and Class Bias in the U.S. Electorate, 1964–2004.” Journal of Politics 69(2): 430–41.10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00541.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lichtenstein, Nelson. 2013. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. 2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, David. 2019. “How Labor Unions Increase Political Knowledge: Evidence from the United States.” Political Behavior. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-019-09548-7).Google Scholar
Mares, Isabela. 2006. Taxation, Wage Bargaining and Unemployment. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miler, Kristina C. 2018. Poor Representation: Congress and the Politics of Poverty in the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1963. “Constituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57(1): 45–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moe, Terry M. 2009. “Collective Bargaining and The Performance of the Public Schools.” American Journal of Political Science 53(1): 156–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosimann, Nadja, and Pontusson, Jonas. 2017. “Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe.” World Politics 69(3): 448–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Jesse H., and Schaffner, Brian F.. 2017. “Testing Models of Unequal Representation: Democratic Populists and Republican Oligarchs?” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 12(s): 185–204.10.1561/100.00016077CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rigby, Elizabeth, and Wright, Gerald C.. 2013. “Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States.” American Journal of Political Science 57(3): 552–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenfeld, Jake. 2014. What Unions No Longer Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674726215CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rupasingha, Anil, and Goetz, Stephan J. 2008. “US County-Level Social Capital Data, 1990–2005.” Manuscript. Penn State University, University Park, PA.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Daniel. 2015. When Movements Anchor Parties. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Verba, Sidney, and Brady, Henry E.. 2012. The Unheavenly Chorus. Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnabel, Claus. 2013. “Union Membership and Density: Some (Not So) Stylized Facts and Challenges.” European Journal of Industrial Relations 19(3): 255–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroka, Stuart N., and Wlezien, Christopher. 2008. “On the Limits to Inequality in Representation.” PS: Political Science & Politics 41(2): 319–27.Google Scholar
Southworth, Caleb, and Stepan-Norris, Judith. 2009. “American Trade Unions and Data Limitations: A New Agenda for Labor Studies.” Annual Review of Sociology 35:297–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stekhoven, Daniel J., and Bühlmann, Peter. 2011. “MissForest. Non-Parametric Missing Value Imputation for Mixed-Type Data.” Bioinformatics 28(1): 112–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stimson, James A., Mackuen, Michael B., and Erikson, Robert S.. 1995. “Dynamic Representation.” American Political Science Review 89(3): 543–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2019. “The American Precariat: U.S. Capitalism in Comparative Perspective.” Perspectives on Politics 17(1): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vavreck, Lynn, and Rivers, Douglas. 2008. “The 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 18(4): 355–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallerstein, Michael, and Western, Bruce. 2000. “Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why.” Annual Review of Political Science 3(1): 355–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Becher and Stegmueller Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/L6KU0D
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Becher and Stegmueller supplementary material

Becher and Stegmueller supplementary material

Download Becher and Stegmueller supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 369.7 KB