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Why Some Strikes Last Longer: The Resilience Paradox of Partially Functional Institutions
Nuno Crokidakis
TL;DR
The paper asks whether residual activity in a partially operating institution can affect strike persistence. It analyzes a minimal dynamical model and finds that increasing residual activity can increase stationary strike participation when the indirect resilience feedback outweighs its direct suppressive effect.
Problem
The paper asks whether residual activity that absorbs strike disruption and may reduce institutional response urgency can also contribute to strike persistence.
Source: §1 · p. 2Method
Results
When ν < νc, increasing non-striking-sector activity increases stationary strike participation; at ν = νc, participation is independent of residual activity.
Source: §3 · p. 5Takeaways & Limitations
By partially absorbing strike disruption, residual activity can reduce pressure for a rapid institutional response and contribute to maintaining the dispute.
Source: §4 · p. 8The minimal model treats residual activity as an external parameter and omits worker heterogeneity, changing bargaining conditions, institutional learning, and explicit negotiation processes.
Source: §4 · p. 8
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Labor strikes do not necessarily lead to complete institutional disruption, particularly when non-striking sectors maintain part of normal activities. We propose a minimal dynamical model to investigate how such residual activity affects the persistence of labor conflicts. The model couples strike participation, institutional response, and overall functionality through two competing mechanisms: a direct suppressive effect of residual activity on strike participation and an indirect effect arising from the reduced institutional pressure to resolve the conflict. Analytical calculations reveal a counterintuitive regime in which increasing residual activity increases, rather than decreases, stationary strike participation. We characterize this behavior through a strike-response susceptibility and derive an exact compensation threshold separating the conventional regime from a resilience-paradox regime. At the threshold, the two mechanisms exactly balance, making stationary strike participation independent of residual activity. Numerical results confirm the analytical predictions and illustrate the underlying mechanism. Our results show that institutional resilience can have an unintended dynamical consequence: by absorbing part of the disruption generated by a strike, continued operation may reduce the urgency of institutional response and thereby favor conflict persistence. This provides a simple example of how individually stabilizing processes can collectively generate counterintuitive outcomes in complex social systems.
1. Introduction
The introduction connects strike persistence to both the disruption that gives workers leverage and the resilience that lets institutions preserve some functionality. It asks whether that continued activity can also favor conflict persistence, and presents a model of the competing effects.
1. Introduction
- Strike research links bargaining and dispute duration to the costs each side can absorb, while disruption is treated as a source of worker leverage.In public-sector disputes, essential or complementary activities may continue during a strike, preserving part of normal institutional functioning.Source: §1 · p. 2
- Organizational resilience is commonly understood as preserving functionality, adapting, and recovering under disturbances.Institutions are generally regarded as benefiting from this capacity to continue operating despite disruption.Source: §1 · p. 2
- The introduction asks whether residual institutional activity, while absorbing disruption and reducing response urgency, can contribute to strike persistence.It frames this as a largely unexplored question about a locally stabilizing mechanism potentially having the opposite effect on conflict dynamics.Source: §1 · p. 2
- The proposed minimal model identifies two regimes: residual activity either reduces stationary strike participation or increases it when the indirect resilience feedback dominates.An exact compensation threshold separates the regimes, and strike-response susceptibility characterizes the response.Source: §1 · p. 2
2. The Model
The model treats strike persistence as a dynamical interaction between striking workers, a non-striking sector, and institutional response. It examines how continued activity can both suppress strike participation directly and weaken the response to operational disruption.
2. The Model
- The model focuses on persistence after mobilization is established, not the emergence of grievances or the decision to begin a strike.Its motivating setting is a partially functional public university where some activities may continue during a strike.Source: §2 · pp. 2–3
- S denotes the fraction of administrative workers striking, while P measures activity maintained by a non-striking sector, not its political stance.In the university context, P can represent academic activity maintained by faculty.Source: §2 · p. 3
- Institutional functionality U combines the two sectors’ contributions, so substantial non-striking activity can preserve functionality even when strike participation is high.The parameter ω controls the sectors’ relative contributions; U = 1 means full functionality.Source: §2 · p. 3
- Strike participation changes through recruitment, institutional response, and a direct suppressive effect of continued non-striking activity.The recruitment rate λ applies to workers not yet striking; response A and the direct effect νPS reduce participation.Source: §2 · p. 3
- Institutional response increases with lost functionality and relaxes over time, so continued activity can weaken response even as it directly suppresses strike participation.This competition may favor conflict persistence under appropriate conditions, which the paper calls the resilience paradox.Source: §2 · pp. 3–4
3. Results
Residual activity affects stationary strike participation through a direct suppressive pathway and an indirect pathway that weakens institutional response. Their competition yields an exact threshold separating conventional and resilience-paradox regimes, which numerical results confirm.
Mechanism
- Residual activity directly suppresses participation, but also preserves functionality, weakens institutional response, and can thereby increase stationary strike participation.The resilience paradox emerges from coupling these individually reasonable mechanisms, not from actors intentionally favoring strike persistence.Source: §3 · p. 5
Analytical results
- The susceptibility χP = dS*/dP changes sign at νc = µηω/θ: it is positive below the threshold, zero at it, and negative above it.At the threshold, stationary strike participation is independent of residual activity.Source: §3 · pp. 4–5
Numerical results
- At ν = 0.40, S* rises with P; at ν = 0.96 it is independent of P; and at ν = 1.40, S* falls as P increases.These cases illustrate the resilience-paradox, compensation, and conventional regimes, respectively.Source: §3 · p. 5, Figure 1 · p. 6
Mechanism
- As P increases, direct suppression strengthens while response-mediated suppression weakens, but their crossing at a particular P does not define νc.The threshold instead depends on the marginal response of stationary participation to changes in P.Source: §3 · pp. 6–7
Numerical results
- Across different P values, all susceptibility curves cross zero at the same νc, separating the paradoxical and conventional responses.For ν < νc, χP > 0; for ν > νc, χP < 0.Source: §3 · p. 6, Figure 2 · p. 7
4. Final Remarks
The paper models how residual activity in a non-striking sector affects strike participation through direct suppression and an indirect, resilience-mediated reduction in institutional response. An exact threshold separates regimes where residual activity decreases or increases stationary participation, and the model identifies a broader scope and limitations for this mechanism.
- For ν<νc=µηω/θ, increasing residual activity raises stationary strike participation; for ν>νc it lowers participation, while at νc participation is independent of P.Source: §4 · p. 7
- Residual activity improves institutional functionality and weakens response-mediated suppression even as direct suppression strengthens, producing the paradox through competing effects.Source: §4 · pp. 7–8
- By partially absorbing strike effects, residual activity can reduce pressure for a rapid institutional response and contribute to maintaining the dispute.Source: §4 · p. 8
- The model treats residual activity as external and omits worker heterogeneity, changing bargaining conditions, institutional learning, and explicit negotiation.Source: §4 · p. 8
- The framework may extend beyond labor strikes to systems where partial functionality attenuates disruption while weakening the response intended to resolve it.Source: §4 · p. 8