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This article argues that centralized wage bargaining alters the causal logic in explanations of wage inequality, in the sense that common explanatory factors have different effects, given the degree of bargaining centralization. The evidence presented supports the theoretical argument. Using aggregate time-series cross-country data from fifteen capitalist democracies, the article shows that—given decentralized bargaining—trade with less developed countries, resources devoted to research and development, and government employment have inegalitarian effects on the wage distribution, whereas leftist governments and unionism compress wages. However, given centralized wage bargaining these effects gradually disappear or, in some cases, change direction.

In this article, the author shows how earlier institutional explanations of union strength are theoretically and methodologically flawed. At odds with earlier research, the author argues that two institutional properties—the degree of centralization in the bargaining system and the workplace access of the union movement— will interactively influence the unionization process. The results of empirical tests speak in favor of the stated hypothesis. The combination of centralized bargaining and workplace access does not only positively influence the aggregate density levels but also cushions the effects of industrial, occupational, and demographic factors on the probability of being a union member.

The point of departure for this thesis is the divergent fate of organized labor during the last decades in the Western world. Given what we know about actual trends, how are we to explain the variation in the strength of organized labor across time and space? The thesis consists of four self-contained essays. Essay 1: Using aggregate data from 15 advanced capitalist societies, I show that the estimated effects of domestic cyclical, labor market structural, and globalization variables differ in a predictable manner across nation-specific institutional frame­works. Essay 2: In the second essay I argue that two institutional properties – the degree of centralization in the bargaining system and the workplace access of the union movement – will interactively influence the unionization process. The empirical results indicate that these institutional variables positively influence the aggregate density levels and cushion the effects of compositional factors on the probability of being a union member. Essay 3: In the third essay I argue that coordinated wage bargaining alters the causal logic when explaining wage inequality, in the sense that common explanatory factors have different effects depending on the degree of bargaining coordination. The evidence presented supports the theoretical argument. Essay 4: In this essay I propose a formal model of strike behavior predicting a curvilinear relationship between employer beliefs about union bargaining strength and the probability of a strike. Further, I argue that this curvilinear relationship is valid only under uncoordinated wage bargaining.

AbstractA core part of political research is to identify how political preferences are shaped. The nature of these questions is such that robust causal identification is often difficult to achieve, and we are not seldom stuck with observational methods that we know have limited causal validity. The purpose of this paper is to measure the magnitude of bias stemming from both measurable and unmeasurable confounders across three broad domains of individual determinants of political preferences: socio-economic factors, moral values, and psychological constructs. We leverage a unique combination of rich Swedish registry data for a large sample of identical twins, with a comprehensive battery of 34 political preference measures, and build a meta-analytical model comparing our most conservative observational (naive) estimates with discordant twin estimates. This allows us to infer the amount of bias from unobserved genetic and shared environmental factors that remains in the naive models for our predictors, while avoiding precision issues common in family-based designs. The results are sobering: in most cases, substantial bias remains in naive models. A rough heuristic is that about half of the effect size even in conservative observational estimates is composed of confounding.

Student mock elections are conducted in schools around the world in an effort to increase political interest and efficacy among students. There is, however, a lack of research on whether mock elections in schools enhance voter turnout in real elections. In this article, we examine whether the propensity to vote in Swedish elections is higher among young people who have previously experienced a student mock election. The analysis is based on unique administrative population-wide data on turnout in the Swedish 2010 parliamentary election and the 2009 European Parliament election. Our results show that having experienced a mock election as a student does not increase the likelihood of voting in subsequent real elections. This result holds when we study both short- and long-term effects, and when we divide our sample into different parts depending on their socio-economic status and study each part separately. ; Funding agencies: Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council; European Research CouncilEuropean Research Council (ERC)

Student mock elections are conducted in schools around the world in an effort to increase political interest and efficacy among students. There is, however, a lack of research on whether mock elections in schools enhance voter turnout in real elections. In this article, we examine whether the propensity to vote in Swedish elections is higher among young people who have previously experienced a student mock election. The analysis is based on unique administrative population-wide data on turnout in the Swedish 2010 parliamentary election and the 2009 European Parliament election. Our results show that having experienced a mock election as a student does not increase the likelihood of voting in subsequent real elections. This result holds when we study both short- and long-term effects, and when we divide our sample into different parts depending on their socio-economic status and study each part separately.

Student mock elections are carried out in schools around the world in an effort to increase political interest and efficacy among students. There is, however, a lack of research on whether mock elections in schools enhance voter turnout in real elections. In this paper, we examine whether the propensity to vote in Swedish elections is higher among young people who have previously experienced a student mock election. The analysis is based on unique administrative population-wide data on turnout in the Swedish 2010 parliamentary election and the 2009 European Parliament election. Our results show that having experienced a mock election as a student does not increase the likelihood of voting in subsequent real elections. This result holds when we study both shortand long-term effects, and when we divide our sample into different parts depending on their socio-economic status and study each part separately.

Inspired by recent studies on personality and political attitudes and behaviour we use the Big Five approach to assess the influence of a comprehensive set of personality traits on political tolerance. Our study is based on surveys in Bhopal in India and Lahore in Pakistan. We find that all Big Five traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – are significantly related to individuals' willingness to grant political rights to groups they dislike in one or both countries. As one of only a few studies examining the relationship between the Big Five traits and political attitudes and behaviour outside a Western context, these findings demonstrate the importance of also paying attention to personality traits when studying contexts where situational factors such as political violence, poverty, and severe inequalities might be expected to be the main influence on individuals' behavioural choices.

This study of political tolerance in India reveals a positive correlation between such tolerance and membership in political parties and unions, and living in urban areas. Surprisingly, the study finds no difference in the levels of political tolerance between BJP and Congress (I) supporters, and no connection with education levels.