ABSTRACT
The major objectives here are to convey an overall picture of the extent of electoral opposition for top posts in British and American unions in the period studied and to report some outstanding differences between the two countries in specific organisational features relevant to our theory of union democracy. Many of the specific measures of opposition or organisa tion described here will be used again, in Chapters 5 and 6, to test the theory within each country separately. Most of the organisational differences might be expected to generate more opposition in Britain than in the United States, and indeed we found a striking difference, in favour of Britain, in the success of opposition in filling top and next-to-top vacancies.
