Several interesting findings emerged from this study. First, strong labour movements still failed to successfully bargain for employment protections due to resistance from employers to encroachments on their institutionalized managerial prerogatives. Second, governments favoured a policy of abstentionism and acquiescence to the collective-laissez-faire tradition until the critical juncture of the 1960s and 1970s. Third, the increasing power resources of trade unions and a deteriorating socio-economic climate created a window of opportunity for bold government action to improve industrial relations, albeit without the consent of employers, and at first, unions. Fourth, contrary to the liberalizing pressures one would expect to find in an archetypical free market economy, the UK has implemented far more statutory protections than deregulatory reforms. Fifth, in contrast to its traditional non-intervention in industrial relations and reputation for worker-protective regulations, Swedish governments have enacted numerous statutes, both restricting and freeing managerial prerogatives in the hiring and firing process. Sixth, statutory employment protections became an independent set of institutional power resources for unions in the long run, serving their organizational and representational interests in important ways. Seventh, unions and left parties consistently defended and advanced the policy preferences of their core constituencies in secure employment by privileging the job security of regular contracts. Eighth, employers and parties on the right of the political spectrum consistently opposed restrictions on the managerial capacity to hire and fire at will, especially for small businesses. Nineth, to increase flexibility without threatening the stability of regular contracts, reforms over the years had to foster atypical forms of work, creating a regulatory gap between permanent and temporary employment, particularly in Sweden. Tenth, differences exist between job security in the statute books and job security in action, particularly in the UK where this gap pervades all aspects of the unfair dismissal system. These findings suggest employment protection legislation has developed in ways far more complex, dynamic and contradictory than is commonly assumed by prominent theories of comparative political economy. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines how and why employment protection legislation developed in the United Kingdom and Sweden in the ways that it did from its early beginnings to the present period. It hopes to offer answers to questions about the initial impetus for statutory regulation, the number, content and impact of significant legislative changes and the preferences of key stakeholders with material interests in the policymaking process. It does this by drawing on a variety of both primary and secondary source materials, including employment protection databases, parliamentary records and research publications. At the same time, it assesses the explanatory merit of dominant theories in the political economy literature by testing them against voluminous empirical evidence and provides a multi-factorial account to fill the gaps in the existing body of knowledge.