Social divisions, party positions, and electoral behaviour

When Supply Creates Demand: Social Democratic Party Strategies and the Evolution of Class Voting

“…Recent advances in the empirical study of class voting have tried to explain over time and comparative variations in the strength of social cleavages (Elff 2009;Evans and De Graaf 2013;Tilley 2012a, 2012b;Evans et al 1999;Oskarson 2005). In this context, two different approaches have been emphasised: one taking a 'bottom-up' perspective and the other 'top-down'.…”

Religion and Redistributive Voting in Western Europe

“…Franklin et al 1992;Knutsen 2004) a new wave of research is investigating the effect of individuals' social location, showing that membership or identification with social groups shapes preferences and choices. The two most salient groups are socio-economic classes (Manza et al 1995;Brooks and Manza 1997;Evans 2000;Elff 2007Elff , 2009van der Waal et al 2007) and religious denominations (Layman 2001;Norris and Inglehart 2004;Manza and Brooks 1997;De Graaf et al 2001;Brooks and Manza 2004;Brooks et al 2006;Elff 2007;Stegmueller et al 2012). …”

The continued salience of religious voting in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain

“…Particularly important are the electoral connections between voters and parties: while some have explored the impact of parties' positions on the effects of social cleavages on party support (Elff, 2009), have religious voters' electoral demands been met on issues most important to them, or has the failure to address these voters' concerns led to the apparent partisan dealignment (visible among German voters in the data presented here)? These answers remain to be seen in future research.…”

“…However, emerging research suggests that religious values also continue to form an important base of electoral support for parties of the right. Although religious observance has declined significantly in recent years, emerging evidence suggests that those who remain faithful continue to comprise a highly salient political cleavage cross-nationally (Elff, 2007(Elff, , 2009Layman, 2001;Schmitt, 1998;Norris and Inglehart, 2004;Norris, 1997;Ang and Petrocik, n.d.). In fact, religious-secular differences remain the best predictor of vote choice among the traditional social cleavages (Dalton, 1996).…”

“…1 This is particularly so with regard to the religious-secular divide (Layman, 2001;Norris and Inglehart, 2004;Mulligan, 2008;Layman and Carmines, 1997;Elff, 2007Elff, , 2009Ang and Petrocik, n.d.). As the social cleavage dividing the religious from the secular has intensified over time despite secularization, so has the political cleavage: religious voters have become an increasingly tempting base of support for conservative parties to target, given religious voters' inclinations toward conservative moral traditionalism and seculars' general affinity for moral progressivism (Layman and Carmines, 1997).…”