Do parties matter? What effects, if any, do politics have on society? Government, Parties, and Public Sector Employees addresses such long-standing questions in political science by looking at one social group - public sector employees - and examining the hypothesis that parties and governments of the Left are more generous toward these employees than those of the Right. The central governments of four countries - Canada, United States, Britain, and France - from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s are the basis of the study.

Public sector employees, as part of both society and government, offer an excellent case study to test the autonomy of politics from society. After rigorous research, André Blais, Donald E. Blake, and Stéphane Dion confirm that in the great majority of cases the Left is indeed more generous to employees than the Right, with some unusual and provocative exceptions. There is an alliance, albeit a loose one, between public sector employees and the Left, an alliance consistent over time in Europe and North America.

Governments, Parties, and Public Sector Employees also shows that when the Left has to choose between more employment and higher wages for public employees, it tends to choose the former, suggesting that ideology is more important than supporters' pressures in inducing party divergence.