Class

Question 1

Weber

Answer 1

‘We may speak of a ‘class’ when

1. a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as:
2. this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income, and:
3. is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor markets.’

Question 2

‘Objective’ social class

Answer 2

I Not consumer spending patterns
I so not market research social grade (A,B,C1,C2,D,E)
I Not income, which does not capture future prospects.
I Not simply manual/non-manual, which is too crude

Goldthorpe schema: Main distinctions are on the basis of
I Employment Relations
I Employers/Self-Employed/Employees
I Contract type (among employees)
I Service versus Labour

Question 3

Oesch 2008: Cultural divisions based on occupation?

Answer 3

I Long been clear that political loyalties, of the salariat
especially, are divided between those in private versus public
sector, and especially those in social-cultural professions
versus business management
I Question of whether we should separate professionals from
managers raised by Manza and Brooks (1999), and reasonably
commonly done now, e.g. Evans and Tilley (New Politics of
Class, 2017).
I Oesch (2008) argues for redefinition of class location based on
economic and cultural cleavages based on work economic
interests and work logics.

CA:
I Separating out socio-cultural professions, or professionals from
managers, arguably strays from Weberian definition of class if
there is no case for the separation based on differing economic
interests
I Need to be careful not to reorganising class schemas in light
of political values since that would raise questions of
endogeneity in two senses.
I Explanatory variable constructed to fit the dependent variable
I People choose the kind of work based on their politics

Question 4

Heath et al 2009

Answer 4

Talking about subjective class identity.

I For men class identity is a function of Father’s social class and
individual occupation, in much the same way as in the 1960s.
I A woman’s class id is now more dependent on her own
occupation and less on her partner’s than it was in the 1960s
(Heath et al 2009).

However, the sense of belonging to a social class has declined
(Heath et al 2009), but not by much (also Evans and Tilley 2017).

I There has been a weakening of the relationship between class
id and party id, but not the kind of secular [long] decline that
individualization requires

Question 5

Butler and Stokes 1974

Answer 5

Class voting not just due to differing econ interests, but also class and partisan identity.

Identity is reinforced through socialisation, trade unions/similar orgs, and local communities.

Question 6

Lipset and Rokkan 1969

Answer 6

Lipset and Rokkan (1969) argued that party systems in Western
Europe reflected the social cleavages, including class, that were
important at the time of universal male enfranchisement. (The
Freezing Hypothesis).
Since then many have argued that there has been a process of
Dealignment, which is the weakening of the association between
class and vote.
Note that Lipset and Rokkan never said that the association
between class and vote had frozen, only that the party system
froze.

Question 7

Heath 2016

Answer 7

Working Class in Britain increasingly abstaining more- Class turnout gap now bigger than the class vote gap:

Question 8

Gingrich 2017

Answer 8

Working Class in Europe moving more to Populist Right:

Left parties in Europe no longer working class parties

Nonetheless there is a stable left vote in Europe:

Question 9

Clarke et al. (2004

Answer 9

In Britain, the net effects of non-class cleavages (e.g. gender, ethnicity, public vs private sectors) haven’t really changed.

Question 10

Evans and Tilley 2017

Answer 10

The decline in class voting is a function of the party strategy
rather than the social changes. I Looks at class voting as a percentage of the electorate (not
just voters) to show that the main story is the collapse of
Working Class turnout for Labour since Blair

I They attribute this not just to Labour’s move to the centre
and declining numbers of working class MPs, but also to
changes in the extent to which Labour are seen as the party of
the working class and politics is talked about in class terms in
the media.

I They make a compelling case that major differences in
economic life chances between the middle and working classes
persist, along with class identification and distinct policy
preferences, and so dealignment is not due to the decreasing
social relevance of class.

CA: this doesn't mean the working class were 'excluded'. I Labour policies remain more beneficial for the working class
than those of the Conservatives.
I And, as they argue, now that the working class is a minority,
Labour have to chase middle class votes to win.

I It is still not quite clear why class voting was so strong during
the post-war consensus when the Conservatives, as the party
of the minority middle class, had to chase working class voters
and maintained nationalised industries and high tax rates on
the rich.I
Given their argument, there is a puzzle as to why the middleclasses did not abandon the Tories in the 1950s in the way
that the working class has apparently given up on Labour
since the 1990s. Perhaps, as Butler and Stokes (1974) argued . . .
I High turnout in the 1950s was maintained by strong class and
partisan identification
I Tories achieved a positive reputation for economic management. I So, valence politics and the decline of party identification is
probably also part of the story behind recent working class
abstention.

Question 11

Evans and Tilley 2011

Answer 11

voters were only
responsive to changes in party polarization after 1974,
because that is when they became more instrumental rather
than expressive

CA: Even then there is clearly a big unexplained decline in class
voting

Question 12

Heath 2013 and 2016

Answer 12

Fewer working class MPs has led to class dealignment and class turnout gap

Some evidence at constituency level and also working-class
Labour candidates associated with greater perceptions that
the party is left wing

CA: However, danger of
I correlation due to trending phenomena (working class
candidates and both weakening class voting and widening class
turnout gap)
I selection bias at the constituency level (Labour fielding
working class candidates in the most working class and Labour
constituencies)

CA2: and the class turnout gap only widening since 2005.
I but most of the decline in working class MPs done by 1997

Question 13

Jensen et al 2013

Answer 13

look
cross-nationally and argue that polarisation (from CMP data)
explains most of the changes in class voting (in line with Elff
(2007)) but that there is still an unexplained linear decline.
I This partly because no systematic decline in polarisation.
Jensen et al (in Evans and de Graaf 2013) argue that
increasing education helps explain the trend.