Doctoral Dissertation Research: State-level factors and passage of Right-to-Work laws

截至2015年，已有25个州通过了工作权利法（RTW），禁止工会安全协议和管理集体谈判权。现有文献预计，工会化水平和经济发展水平相对较高的国家会得到相同的政策结果，拒绝RTW提案。这些因素并不能解释在经济相似的州，如中西部工业州，RTW结果的差异。在20世纪50年代和2010年代，高度工会化的中西部工业州，如印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州，都面临着关于RTW的立法和公投提案。尽管条件相似，但这些州的政策结果却不同。印第安纳州分别在1957年和2012年通过了RTW；俄亥俄州在1958年和2011年投了反对票，密歇根州在20世纪50年代未能引入RTW，但在2012年以惊人的胜利通过了它。这些案例挑战了现有文献的预期，并提出了以下问题：尽管有着相似的政治和社会经济背景，为什么印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州在工作权方面走的是不同的道路？这就是本研究试图回答的问题。回答这些问题将有助于劳动社会学和理解组织过程和国家实践，塑造政策结果，政策实践者，学者和公众都关注的话题。此外，该研究将产生一个数据存储库，为这些主题的未来学者提供丰富的资源。鉴于在印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州赢得工作权（RTW）竞赛的利益集团与州政党结成了战略伙伴关系，本项目假设这些政党联盟解释了三个案例中不同的RTW结果。该项目借鉴了政治学、政党社会学以及知识和专业知识社会学的最新研究成果，提出政党联盟通过建立广泛的组织支持基础、部署针对多个不同选区的竞选语言以及建立适合评估RTW的认知框架来塑造RTW的结果。本项目通过对20世纪50年代和2010年代发生在印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州的二次战争的比较历史分析来检验这些假设。在这方面，本论文有望做出三个重要贡献。首先，它将通过为其他异常情况提供解释来促进RTW文献。其次，它将通过明确政党形成政策结果的机制，为政党社会学做出贡献。第三，它将通过在数字存储库中保存所有原始原始材料来促进未来的研究，创建一个信息存储库，研究人员，政策实践者和公众可以从中了解RTW，劳工运动和美国的政党。通过这些方式，本论文有望加深我们对公共领域中形成政策选择和结果的组织过程和国家实践的理解，这是政策实践者、学者和公众都关注的一个话题。

As of 2015, twenty-five states have passed Right-to-Work (RTW) laws prohibiting union security agreements and governing collective bargaining rights. Existing literature expects that states with relatively high levels of unionization and economic development will arrive at the same policy outcome, rejecting RTW proposals. These factors do not explain divergent RTW outcomes in states with similar economies such as those of the Industrial Midwest. In both the 1950s and 2010s, highly-unionized, industrial Midwestern states like Indiana, Michigan and Ohio faced legislative and referendum proposals for RTW. Despite similar conditions, these states arrived at different policy outcomes. Indiana passed RTW in 1957 and 2012; Ohio voted against it in 1958 and 2011, and Michigan failed to introduce RTW in the 1950s, but passed it in a surprising victory in 2012. These cases challenge expectations from existing literature and pose the following question: why have Indiana, Michigan and Ohio followed divergent paths through right-to-work, despite sharing similar political and socioeconomic profiles? That is the question this research seeks to answer. Answering these questions will contribute to the sociology of labor and understanding organizational processes and state practices that shape policy outcomes, a topic of concern for policy practitioners, academics and the public alike. Further, the research will result in a data repository that will be a rich resource for future scholars of these topics. Given that the interest groups who won Right-to-Work (RTW) contests in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio formed strategic partnerships with state parties, this project hypothesizes that these party coalitions explain divergent RTW outcomes across the three cases. Drawing from recent work in political science, the sociology of political parties, and the sociology of knowledge and expertise, this project proposes that party coalitions shaped RTW outcomes by building broad bases of organizational support, deploying campaign language that targeted multiple, disparate constituencies, and establishing the cognitive frameworks appropriate for evaluating RTW. This project tests these hypotheses through a comparative-historical analysis of RTW battles in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio in the 1950s and 2010s. In so doing, this dissertation promises to make three important contributions. First, it will contribute to the RTW literature by providing explanation for otherwise anomalous cases. Second, it will contribute to the sociology of parties by specifying the mechanisms through parties shape policy outcomes. Third, it will facilitate future research by preserving all original source materials in a digital repository, creating a storehouse of information from which researchers, policy practitioners and the public may learn about RTW, the labor movement, and political parties in the United States. In these ways, this dissertation promises to deepen our understanding of the organizational processes and state practices that shape policy options and outcomes in the public sphere, a topic of concern for policy practitioners, academics and the public alike.