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

截至2015年，已有25个州通过了禁止工会安全协议和管理集体谈判权的工作权（RTW）法律。现有文献预计，工会化和经济发展水平相对较高的国家将得出相同的政策结果，拒绝RTW的建议。这些因素并不能解释在经济相似的州（如工业中西部）不同的RTW结果。在20世纪50年代和21世纪10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，但这些国家得出了不同的政策结果。印第安纳州于1957年和2012年通过了RTW;俄亥俄州于1958年和2011年投票反对，密歇根州未能在20世纪50年代引入RTW，但在2012年以令人惊讶的胜利通过了RTW。这些案例挑战了现有文献的预期，并提出了以下问题：为什么印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州尽管有着相似的政治和社会经济背景，但在工作权方面却走上了不同的道路？ 这就是本研究试图回答的问题。 研究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，学者和公众都关心的话题。此外，这项研究将产生一个数据库，这将是这些主题的未来学者的丰富资源。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形成了战略伙伴关系，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。从最近的工作在政治学，政党的社会学，知识和专业知识的社会学，该项目提出，政党联盟塑造RTW的结果，建立广泛的组织支持基础，部署竞选语言，针对多个，不同的选区，并建立适当的认知框架评估RTW。本项目通过对20世纪50年代和21世纪10年代发生在印第安纳州、密歇根州和俄亥俄州的RTW战役进行比较历史分析来检验这些假设。在这样做，本论文承诺作出三个重要贡献。首先，它将有助于RTW文献提供解释，否则异常的情况。第二，它将有助于政党社会学，通过政党塑造政策结果的机制。第三，它将通过将所有原始源材料保存在数字存储库中来促进未来的研究，创建一个信息库，研究人员，政策执行者和公众可以从中了解RTW，美国的劳工运动和政党。通过这些方式，本文有望加深我们对组织过程和国家实践的理解，这些过程和实践塑造了公共领域的政策选择和结果，这是政策实践者，学者和公众关注的话题。

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.