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When Government Subsidizes Its Own: Collective Bargaining Laws as Agents of Political Mobilization
Author(s) -
Flavin Patrick,
Hartney Michael T.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12163
Subject(s) - collective bargaining , subsidy , politics , mobilization , bureaucracy , collective action , government (linguistics) , state (computer science) , negotiation , public administration , political science , political mobilization , political economy , economics , law , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , computer science
Government policies can activate a political constituency not only by providing material resources to, or altering the interpretive experiences of, individual citizens, but also by directly subsidizing established interest groups. We argue that state laws mandating collective bargaining for public employees provided organizational subsidies to public sector labor unions that lowered the costs of mobilizing their members to political action. Exploiting variation in the timing of laws across the states and using data on the political participation of public school teachers from 1956 to 2004, we find that the enactment of a mandatory bargaining law significantly boosted subsequent political participation among teachers. We also identify increased contact from organized groups seeking to mobilize teachers as a likely mechanism that explains this finding. These results have important implications for the current debate over collective bargaining rights and for our understanding of policy feedback, political parties and interest groups, and the bureaucracy.