Trajectories of Solidarity: Changing Union-party Linkages in The UK and The USA.

This article analyses the linkage between trade unions and the US Democratic Party and the UK Labour Party in the twentieth century. A typology suited to longitudinal analysis of labour movement union-party linkages is proposed to help characterise and explain his-torical development of these two national movements through earlier types of linkage, into ‘New Labour’ and ‘New Democratic’ forms. The paper suggests that, from similar starting points, differences through time in the range of types of linkage in the two movements can be explained by a combination of factors of political economy and electoral strategy, a combination that today points towards weaker relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]