Striking concessions from governments: explaining the success of general strikes in Western Europe, 1980-2009

Since the early 1980s, labor unions in Western Europe have mobilized large numbers of protesters in a rising number of general strikes against policy reforms by national governments. In over 40 percent of the cases, governments ceded concessions to unions in response. Which factors drive governments’ decisions to grant concessions in the wake of general strikes? We explain the variation in government responses to general strikes by examining properties of governments, such as type of government and party family. Drawing on an original dataset from 16 West European countries (1980-2009), we analyze the outcomes of 75 general strikes using logistic regression. We find that concessions to unions are more likely by coalition governments, and by governments led by center or Christian Democratic parties, compared to social democratic and conservative governments. We offer a possible explanation for this finding based on shifting ideological alliances in multi-party systems