European industrial relations face a dual challenge: long-term erosion of collective representation (fragmentation, declining membership, decentralised bargaining) and the rise of populist actors promoting disintermediating, anti-pluralist narratives. This article theorises populism as a disintermediating force in industrial relations and examines how it pressures the institutions of economic and industrial democracy. It advances two claims: (1) populist disintermediation targets unions and social partners through delegitimation, institutional marginalisation and political bypass; (2) its effects vary with the institutional embeddedness of collective governance and unions’ strategic capacity. Empirically, the study conducts a structured, focused comparison of Austria, France, Italy, Poland and Spain, combining secondary sources with 25 semi-structured interviews with union representatives and national experts. Findings show that outcomes range from resilience to reconfiguration and erosion risk, and that unions’ role as democratic stabilisers is contingent on institutional resources, legitimacy across fragmented constituencies and strategic positioning.
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