UC Riverside

This dissertation examines why the COVID-19 pandemic produced post-pandemic strike waves in some liberal market economies but not others. The U.S., U.K., and Canada experienced escalating strike activity; Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand did not. In Canada, a wave concentrated in Quebec but not in Ontario or British Columbia. The dissertation proposes an activation sequencing framework, in which waves arose where premature rollback of pandemic-era income supports met coordination networks already operationally exercised for cross-sector mobilization. Neither condition alone was sufficient. The within-Canada comparison points to network activation as a key variable. Rollback appears necessary but insufficient; the mobilization capacity hypothesis is not supported, as the United States produced a wave from the most adverse structural position; activation sequencing alone is consistent with all cases examined.