Party-union ties: 60 years of decline? A comparative study of personnel ties between trade unions and social democratic parties in Norway and Germany, 1957-2017

Abstract

For some time now it has been argued that the traditionally strong ties between social democratic parties and trade unions are weakening. There is, however, limited research on the unorganized, individual part of the relationship. The aim of this study is to fill some of this knowledge gap. The thesis is a comparative case study of the development in personnel ties in Norway and Germany from 1957-2017. The parliamentary representatives that hold or have held positions in a trade union during four parliamentary periods have been mapped. The primary data source is literary biographies. The data utilized is a combination of already existing data and completely new data collected specifically for this study. The analysis of the data shows that there has been and still are personnel ties between the trade unions and social democratic parties in Norway and Germany. These ties have declined since the 1950s, but the pace of this decline has been different in the two countries. The ties in Germany have declined gradually (strong-medium-weak), while the ties in Norway started off as medium strong, following an upsurge to strong ties in 1997, before a drastic decrease in 2013. It is also evident that the personnel ties are declining in accordance with other kinds of ties. However, there is variation between different ties that call for further investigation.