Does work socialisation matter? Worker engagement in political activities, attachment to democracy and openness to immigration

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12319
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Thomas Turner,Lorraine Ryan
• Date: 01 March 2021

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Does work socialisation matter? Worker

engagement in political activities, attachment

to democracy and openness to immigration

Lorraine Ryan | Thomas Turner

Department of Work and Employment

Studies, Kemmy Business School,

University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

Correspondence

Lorraine Ryan, Department of Work and

Employment Studies, Kemmy Business

School, University of Limerick, Limerick,

Ireland.

Email: lorraine.t.ryan@ul.ie

Abstract

The effects of work socialisation on worker engagement

in political activities, attachment to democracy and

openness to outsiders are explored in this article. Work

environments are measured using firm size, unionisa-

tion and employee participation as significant factors

that contribute to the development of democratic or

authoritarian sentiment at work. Using data from the

European Social Survey across 11 countries, we test

whether work socialisation influences individuals'

attitudes such as trust in the societal institutions of

democracy, active involvement in political activities

and openness to outsiders, particularly immigrants.

Results indicate that individuals working in large

organisations accompanied by higher levels of voice and

participation at work are more likely to report greater

political engagement, trust in politics, trust in people

and openness to outsiders compared to workers in small

organisations with low levels of voice and participation.

1|INTRODUCTION

Since 1980, authoritarianism in the United States and Europe as measured by a weakening of

support for democracy and its institutions has been increasing (Stefan Foa & Mounk, 2016). In

recent years, there has been growing electoral support in a number of European countries for

populist political parties, some with dubious democratic credentials that typically draw on a

Received: 21 April 2020 Revised: 14 January 2021 Accepted: 18 January 2021

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12319

© 2021 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Industrial Relations. 2021;52:125–144. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 125

mass movement led by an outsider or maverick seeking to gain or maintain power by using

anti-establishment appeals and plebiscitarian linkages (Barr, 2009, p. 44; Chih-Mei, 2017;

McDonald & Werner, 2018). Recent evidence indicates an overrepresentation of workers among

the electorate of new radical right-wing parties (typically labelled as extreme right, populist or

radical right) that have emerged since the 1990s (Kitschelt, 2007; Rustenbach, 2010;

Rydgren, 2013). Many of these workers are attracted to such populist parties because of their

strong anti-immigrant stance (Yilmaz, 2012). A bulwark against the erosion of a democratic sys-

tem of governance is a citizenry that espouses the core values of democracy and actively partici-

pates in the democratic process (Almond & Verba, 1963). As most people spend a great part of

their life at work, exposure to democratic or authoritarian work environments may influence

the extent to which there is a positive or negative spill-over into democratic behaviours.

Socialisation refers to the influence of environmental (work) factors on social attitudes,

including political ones (Stanojevic et al., 2020). Workers socialised in authoritarian work

settings may be inculcated into an environment characterised by an emphasis on conformity to

organisational rules, obedience to authority and opposition towards outsiders particularly those

who are perceived to contest the group's social norms (Stenner, 2005).

Our central research question is whether situation-specific workplace socialisation

conditions are associated with attachment to democracy, active participation in political

activities and an acceptance of outsiders. The possibility of a relationship between features of the

working environment and democratic behaviour has a long history. A central assertion in

Pateman's (1970) theory of participatory democracy is that the existence of representative institu-

tions at national level is not sufficient for democracy. Advocates of the democratic spill-over

thesis maintain that workplace democracy and participation increase workers' sense of political

efficacy and this then transfers to the formal political sphere through an increased propensity to

join political parties and vote in elections (Barber, 2003; Pateman, 1970). Participation in the

workplace generally refers to the tendency to break with hierarchical management forms and

decentralize decision-making in companies' organization of work to allow employees influence

decisions affecting their jobs (Busck et al., 2010). Theoretically, the level of workplace participa-

tion most likely to engender political participation are mechanisms that allow workers a say both

directly at the lower level in the day-to-day control of shop floor activity and indirectly through

representative structures at higher-level such as strategic decisions in investment and marketing

(Pateman, 1970). However, the empirical evidence for a link between workplace participation,

efficacy and political participation is relatively weak or non-existent (e.g. D'Art & Turner, 2007,

p. 121; Greenberg et al., 1996; Schweizer, 1995). Explanations for the absence of a significant

relationship have largely pointed to the poor specification of the various measures of participa-

tion used in the empirical studies. Yet the near exclusive focus on measures of workplace democ-

racy and participation whether direct or indirect has generally ignored firm size as a facilitator of

collective consciousness and a capacity to challenge management policies. Such challenges often

stem from workers in large even non-unionised firms (see, e.g. protests in Google, McDonalds

and Ryanair, De Spiegelaere, 2020; Royle, 2010; Weaver et al., 2018). Consequently, we include

firm size and unionisation in addition to employee workplace participation to identify workers'

exposure to democratic and authoritarian behaviour and attitudinal socialisation at work. Using

a number of waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2002 to 2016, we examine whether

employment in democratic rather than authoritarian work settings influences an individual's

attitudes such as trust in the institutions of democracy, active involvement in political activities

including voting in national elections and openness to outsiders, particularly immigrants. Our

focus is the contingent factors in the workplace that plausibly may influence individuals'

126 RYAN AND TURNER