Social Structure and Electoral Behavior in Comparative Perspective: The Decline of Social Cleavages in Western Europe Revisited

Abstract

A new conventional wisdom characterizes the comparative study of electoral politics. Social cleavages, once a stabilizing factor of electoral behavior in Western Europe, are on the wane. Voting decisions have become individualized and old social cleavages have been superseded by new value-related cleavages. This article challenges that view as an exaggeration. Social cleavages have not disappeared and are not in universal decline, as demonstrated by an examination of data from seven countries from 1975 to 2002. Religious-secular voting is mostly stable, while class voting shows an unambiguous decline in only some of the countries under study. Further, neither rising levels of cognitive mobilization nor a dissemination of postmaterialist value priorities can account for these changes in class voting. The exaggeration of limited changes to general trends seems to rest on a disregard of the effects of party competition on patterns of electoral behavior. I suggest that further research should focus on the effects of parties' electoral strategies on the electoral relevance of social cleavages.

The declining electoral relevance of traditional cleavage groups

“…The most recent evidence encourages us to recognize country-level differences in cleavage structures and their varying patterns of influence on voting behaviour (Brooks et al, 2006;Elff, 2007; see also Freire, 2006). As Elff (2007) argues, variations in the relationship between cleavage position and voting behaviour should be expected, since contextual features such as party programmes will affect individual incentives to vote in line with cleavage positions. Due to contextual features, the voting behaviour of traditional social cleavage groups is likely to vary cross-nationally, even if there is a tendency for this behaviour to be on the decline.…”

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). …”

“…I build on recent research in political sociology and economics, which stresses the continuing importance of the religious cleavage (e.g. Manza and Brooks 1997;Brooks and Manza 2004;Brooks et al 2006;Elff 2007;Stegmueller et al 2012) and the effects of religious identity (a micro-level manifestation of religious cleavages) on conservative moral and economic preferences (Guiso et al 2003(Guiso et al , 2006Alesina and Giuliano 2011;Stegmueller et al 2012). 1 Theoretical work in political economy shows that policy interested parties respond to these predictable micro-level patterns by bundling economic and moral policies (Roemer 1998(Roemer , 2001Gill and Lundsgaarde 2004).…”

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

“…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).…”