Social origins of parties: cleavags Flashcards
2 approaches to classifying party systems
- Traditional comparative approach:
–>aim to categorise party systems into distinct classes/types (example two-party systems)
Using this approach, party systems barely change.
- very strict conditions - Other approach does not use classification, but uses continuous numeric variables to summarise/define party system.
These variables are almost always based on calculation of number + relative size of parties present.
With this approach, differences in party systems are a matter of degree rather than of kind.
* party system change is a continuous phenomenon; it does not specify, however, what kind of change is happening.
When does a party system change?
When there is a change in structure of competition
How can party competition change
- Change is prevailing pattern of alternation in government (change of government)
- extent to which the governing alternatives in system prove stable or consistent over time or wheter they involve innovative alternatives
- question of who governs and to which extent is the access to government open to a wide range of parties or limited to a smaller subset of established governing parties.
Party system
Parties as parts of a whole and that they get their identity from relationship with other parties.
also debate that it is related to cleavages (bottom-up). Party systems are systems of competition
Cleavages
From demand side. Basis of political mobilisation
Deep structural divides that persist through time and through generations
Deep divisions within society: class, ethnicity, religion.
How are cleavages different than issues?
Issues can be absorbed into larger structure. Larger cleavages can embody larger issues within it
3 components to cleavages
- objective reality
- subjective identification
3 institutionalised or political mobilised - Objective reality:
There has to be an objective problem or division in society
Individuals who would like the church to play less of a role in society
Individuals who would like the church to continue to play an important role in society - Subjective Identification
Individuals have to be aware of this division
It has meaning or relevance for them - Political mobilization
There has to be an institutionalization of the cleavage
Political party, union, social movement
4 sets of cleavages
Church - State
Center -Periphery
Urban- Rural
Worker-Owner
- objective reality
There has to be an objective problem or division in society
Individuals who would like the church to play less of a role in society
Individuals who would like the church to continue to play an important role in society
- subjective identification
Individuals have to be aware of this division
It has meaning or relevance for them
- Political mobilization
There has to be an institutionalization of the cleavage
Political party, union, social movement
threshold (drempel) for cleavage is quite high. It is important for this to happen because a cleavage has to structure the system.
National Revolution
How states become states
Cleavages that National Revolution has created
Church - State
Center -Periphery
How was church-state cleavage created
as states become states (1600-1800)
it is about power + centralisation.
Authority who tries to centralise power, has to deal with survial.
Fight over power with church.
In catholic countries this emerges into cleavages: due restistance to centralisation
Cleavages that Industrial Revolution has created
Urban- Rural
Worker-Owner
How was urban-rural cleavage created?
Tension between urban and rural (early industrialiasation)
as production moves to the city and economy emerges here
a division emerges between city and countryside.
Becomes more uniform, more universal.
How was the worker-owner cleavage created?
At heart of te industrialisation, in all countries.
Factory workers moved to te cities to work versus the owners of production.
Four cleavages from four party systems
- Left- Right (Uk –> worke-owner)
- Left-rRight with overlapping reliious cleavages (GR, NL, IT): Christian democrats.
Workers + business men –> vote religious party - Left-Right with overlapping regional cleavages (SP): Regional idenity
- Left-Right wit larger farmer-liberal versions (Scandinavia)
Same thing: urban-rural.
Why was the worker-woner the dominant cleavage in United Kingdom?
Because of early industrialisation/ land owning classes absorbed as productive.
Church divide resolved internalised
Do these cleavages stil hold?
No
cleavages are emerging
1970s rise of Post-material values
Cleavages started to dissolve due tot rise of Post material values.
Voting became issue-based.
Rise of new cleavages
Society changes in 1970s
- Rise of Welfare state –> whole new form of employment + new middle class (teachers, doctors etc)
- Women started to work more
- Nature of working class starts to change (what kind of work you do)
- process of secularisation
- more young people going to university (huge impact!)
- Globalisation
Party system changes in 1970s
Old party identities start to become weaker, class begins to change and starts to become more fragmented.
However, the whole system is not completely abandoned.
Working class still tend to vote social Democratic and the religious Christian Democratic.
This support is however not exclusive anymore, and this class becomes smaller.
Old system doesnt disappear but fizzles out.
De-alginment: voters become more volatile
How do we explain these changes in 1970s/ party system?
Post material values:
Whole new generation coming about:
- student protests
- environmental issues
-identity questions
–> younger people have different values
Older generation more concerned with economic growth, and younger with quality of life.
IMPORTANT:
these people are higher educated + middle class -> they ‘‘should’’ have a high trust in government, however the opposite is true!
! Scarcity + socialisation Hypothesis !!!
Scharcity hypothesis about hierarchy of needs.
Individuals need to fulfill their most basic needs. (foods, shelter, security)
Onces these are fulfilled –> able to fulfill higher needs.
–> this leads to socialisation hypothesis
During formative years, one develops ones needs/core values.
Wihtin times of scarcity + insecurity (lack) there are more material values.
In times of less scarcity and more security –> more post-material values
What are post-material values?
- Self-realization
- Challenging authority
- often related to specific issues:
- the environment
- Questions of identity
-local participation - Value change is generational
- Older generations remained more material
- Younger generations became more post-material
- It is cohort effect
Due to material conditions - Due to socialization
New dimensions Post-material values
Rise of new types of values that determine politics.
We see that a new dimension becomes more important. –> liberal-cultural dimension.
This has consequences for political affliations, it divides the left (new left-green left).
It means some left-wing voters go right (neo-conservatism) due to material values.
A rise of new dimension leads to realisnment of politics.
Are values really a cleavage?
Not perse. It becomes a cleavage when it gets insitutionalised (new party)
Some see it as dissolving of cleavages and belonging (cognitive mobiliation)
others think cleavages are still more important
Cognitive mobilisation theory!!
Voters have changed how they identify with political parties.
This is due to increase in education and level of political sophistication
This means that those who have higher political skills + resources tend to follow the cues of parties less,
and these voters votre more focused on issues.
This is especially the case among younger generation, new middle-class + post-materialists: critical of authority + more volatile.
role of media + alternative forms of information
block volatility
volatility between blocks.
Populist parties can pull voters from blocks.
High volatility periods cause
Usually new populist parties
+ economic crises
Defined as ‘’the net change within the electoral party system resulting from individual vote transfers’’
2 ways to look at embedding voters
- GAL-TAN approach
- demarcation + integration approach
GAL-TAN approach
Green-Alternative- Liberal versus Traditional Aurhoritarian- Nationalist.
Politics two-dimensional
Tension between GAL en TAN.
EU- integration as critical juncture
This leads to polarization between:
Highly educated, young, migrants , city dwellers (cosmopolitan)
Versus
Low skilled, old, nationalists, hinterland dwellers (nationalist)
Embedded in larger issues of national identity
Demarcation-integration approach
Demarcation integration approach
Globalization as new critical juncture (like national + industrial revolution)
Political paradox of globalization (new cleavage)
Politics is 2 dimensional:
* Economic dimension
* Cultural dimension
Globalisation challenges core of nation state. INternatinalisation of economics, politcs and culture create people to become more open or closed.
How should we understand party systems, from the demand-side perspective?
Perhaps old cleavages are more resistant than we think
The issue voting
The new cleavages
GAL-TAN
Demarcation-integration (replaces left-right cleavage)
Has there been a realignment? Or just dealignment?
Are demand side explanations enough? Or do we need to turn to supply side explanations as well?
