Social origins of parties: cleavags Flashcards
(35 cards)
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!
