- This article is about the book 'Union
Democracy. For the labor movement
philosophy, see union
democracy.
Union Democracy: The Internal Politics of the
International Typographical Union is a book by
Seymour Martin Lipset,
Martin Trow and
James S. Coleman, originally published by
New
York
Free Press in
1956.
The book addresses the question of what factors affect the
power structure and
decision making processes in
organizations. It concentrates on the
micro-level
political systems
existing in them, especially
democracy and
oligarchy. The problem seen as central by
the authors was the difficulty of maintaining democracy in
organizations. This issue was first raised by
Robert Michels in his
Political Parties and termed the
Iron law of oligarchy: all
forms of
organization, regardless of
how
democratic or
autocratic they may be at the start, will
eventually and inevitably develop into
oligarchies. As organization increases in size,
its
bureaucracy will grow as well, and
leaders of bureacracy will use their position to increase and
entrench their powers, departing further and further from any
ideals of democracy the organization might have once possessed
(Michels studied organizations that one would expect to be quite
democratic:
socialist parties and
trade unions).(Lipset 1988, Michels
1915)
The book
is a case study of one particular
organization: the International Typographical
Union, organization seen by the authors as the most democratic
one in the contemporary (1950s) United States of America
; an organization that seemingly disproved Michel's
iron law. Lipset noticed that ITU formed an interesting
contradiction to the iron law in the 1940s, while studying under
one of the 'giants' of sociology,
Robert K. Merton, who encouraged him to develop those
ideas into an article, and later, a book, a task that Lipset
approached with the help of two other researchers, Martin Trow and
James S. Coleman. In the course of his research Lipset and others
interviewed over 400 members of the
ITU.(Lipset 1988)
Lipset, Trow and Coleman largely agree with Michels that there are
oligarchical bureaucratic tendencies in all organizations. They
point to several factors that made ITU different from most other
unions - and organizations - and thus able to defy the iron law.
They noted that unlike most of such organizations, ITU was founded
by a group of local unions valuing their
autonomy. The existence of factions within the
democratic structure (
elections) of the
union prevented leaders from becoming too
corrupt, as each faction was always
willing to expose the misdoings of another. They also point out
that similarity between background of members (most of them coming
from
middle class) further encouraged
democratic decision making processes (Goldfield 1998).
One of the conclusions of Lipset, Trow and Coleman research was
that behaviour of individuals could be related to the qualities of
local environments (
group) and
their
leaders.(Lipset 1988)
The book was and still is widely
cited in
the field of
sociology and
political science, particularly in the
subfield of
organizational
studies.(Lipset 1988)
References
- , Seymour Martin Lipset, 20/1988. Last accessed on 16 September
2006
- Lipset's Union Democracy After 40 Years,
Michael Goldfield, 1998. Last accessed on 16 September 2006.
- Michels, Robert. 1915. Political Parties: A Sociological
Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.
Translated into English by Eden Paul and
Cedar Paul. New York: The Free Press.
From the 1911 German source.
External links
Further reading
- Seymour Martin Lipset, Martin Trow and James S. Coleman,
Union Democracy: The Internal Politics of the International
Typographical Union, New York, Free Press, 1956, ISBN
0-02-919210-2
- Lucio Baccaro, "Union Democracy
Revisited: Decision-Making Procedures in the Italian Labour
Movement," Economic and Industrial Democracy. 2001; 22:
183-210
- Harry H. Wellington, Union Democracy and Fair
Representation: Federal Responsibility in a Federal System,
Yale Law Journal, Vol. 67, No. 8 (Jul., 1958), pp.
1327-1362
- S. Hix, Elections, Parties and Institutional Design: A
Comparative Perspective on European Union Democracy, West
European Politics, 1998, Vol. 21; Number 3, pages 19-52
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