Class voting in capitalist democracies since World War II: Dealignment, realignment, or trendless fluctuation?

Jeff Manza, Michael Hout, Clem Brooks

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Over the last two decades, many social scientists have argued that the stable class politics of industrial capitalism is giving way to newer types of social and attitudinal cleavages. Some scholars have gone further to associate what they see as significant declines in the anchorings provided by class with the rise of new political movements, parties, and even politicians standing for office completely outside traditional party systems. Advances in class theory and statistical methods coupled wit0h the availability of high quality data have led others to reexamine the issue. They have suggested that these arguments reflect a misreading of the empirical evidence and/or exaggerate the significance of these developments. We conclude that despite the absence of a clear consensus in the field, theories asserting a universal process of class dealignment are not supported.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationNew Critical Writings in Political Sociology
Subtitle of host publicationVolume Two: Conventional and Contentious Politics
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages3-28
Number of pages26
ISBN (Electronic)9781315264547
ISBN (Print)9780754627548
StatePublished - Mar 2 2017

Keywords

  • Class analysis
  • Political behavior
  • Political change
  • Political sociology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Social Sciences

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