Social class, union power and perceptions of political voice: liberal democracies, 1974-2016

Focusing on the role of social class as a determinant of individuals' perceptions of being politically represented, or having political voice, this paper analyses responses to a survey question that asks respondents whether they agree or disagree with the statement that «people like me don't have any say about what the government does.» We draw on surveys fielded by the International Social Survey Program in 19 liberal democracies between 1996 and 2016. For a subset of 7 countries, we also analyze data from a cross-national survey asking the same question in the mid-1970s, allowing us to explore class gaps in perceptions of political voice over a longer time horizon. We show that there is a very clear class hierarchy in perceptions of being politically represented, with less skilled, routine workers feeling poorly represented and middleclass professionals feeling well represented, and that social class trumps relative income as a determinant of perceptions of being represented in politics. We also show that class gaps in perceptions of political voice have been remarkably stable over time. Finally, our analysis shows that the effects of union membership on workers' perceptions of being represented in politics have changed. In the 1970s, unskilled workers and skilled production workers who were union members perceived themselves as having more political influence than their non-union counterparts, but this is no longer the case today