Political Cleavages and Socio-economic Context: How Welfare Regimes and Historical Divisions Shape Political Cleavages

Abstract

The paper argues that despite significant changes taking place in the social structure of contemporary industrial societies and the weakening of links between parties and voters, structure and value-based divisions still count as a source of electoral behavior in advanced industrial societies. Furthermore, the way these divisions impact on the politics of Western European countries is affected by the characteristics of welfare regimes and the historical importance of cultural and economic divisions. Interaction of these two variables produces three configurations of cleavages. In the first configuration dominance belongs to economic cleavages. In the second configuration economic cleavages are supplanted by weaker cultural cleavages. In the third configuration cultural cleavages have a more important role than economic cleavages. The empirical analysis using European Value Survey data broadly supports these expectations and finds the presence of a link between welfare state characteristics and historical divisions on the one hand and value cleavages on the other.

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