The Effects on Political Legitimacy of Involving Employee and Employer Associations in Public Policy Making

Systematic analyses of the political effectiveness of involving employee and employer associations in public policy making via social pacts in terms of one central alleged function, i.e. raising political legitimacy, are lacking. The aim of this article is to assess the impact of involving employee and employer associations in public policy and their political effects. As regards the assessment of the impact of involvement via social pacts on political legitimacy, the article will focus on the impact on the electoral success of governments. The findings from time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) analyses on the basis of data for 20 countries from 1980 to 2003 show that involvement offers no superior electoral performance for governments.