Political parties and trade unions – an old cleavage dies hard?

In many European democracies, political parties and trade unions have developed a centuries-long relationship. This relationship has certainly evolved over the last few decades as both actors have needed to adapt to the changes in their constituencies. The situation has been different in the new EU democracies. Here, the departure point for democracy was not centuries-long overlapping processes, but rather an unexpected collapse of Communism. This article investigates the differences and similarities in contacts between political parties and trade unions in six polities: four from Western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden; and three from Central-Eastern Europe: Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. The empirical analysis draws on a comparative dataset of interest groups. We expect that the party size and their power as well as ideological closeness of the parties may be of importance. Our study confirms that parties that are in power become more attractive to unions due to their decision-making capacity in the political process.