A wide range of contributions reflecting a variety of concerns appear in this section: descriptive studies that examine the strike waves that broke out in various European countries on the eve, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, and compare them with earlier strike waves in these countries' labor histories; more theoretical treatments that scrutinize these strike waves in the perspective of the overall evolution of patterns of labor unrest in the countries under their scrutiny in the second half of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries, and assess the adequacy of the models that have been applied to analyze their dynamics; and a number of quantitative studies that seek in a variety of ways to test the statistical validity of these and other approaches in accounting for the scope, intensity, and character that certain of these strike waves assumed, especially after the turn of the century. Yet, however implicitly in some cases, all of these contributions have had to confront, and challenge at least to some degree, the adequacy – at least in accounting for the phenomenon of strike waves – of two major theoretical models that have dominated the analysis of industrial labor conflits, especially in quantitative studies.

The first of these models, largely developed by economists and economic historians, has focused attention on the relationships between patterns of labor unrest and short-term as well as long-term cycles in economic and particularly industrial development.