Suchergebnisse

De politiek van Westerse landen is sinds lange tijd georganiseerd langs diverse maatschappelijke conflicten. Een van die conflicten, misschien historisch gezien wel de belangrijkste, is dat tussen de economisch beter gesitueerden en de minderbedeelden. In elke moderne democratie, zo betoogde Lipset eerder al, wordt er een klassenconflict uitgevochten via de stembus. Politieke partijen zijn georganiseerd langs de lijnen van de diverse klassenbelangen en trekken elk een eigen specifieke achterban aan. In deze zin is stemmen niets minder dan een voortzetting van de klassenstrijd waarin het conflict over de verdeling van de middelen wordt vertaald in vaste banden tussen klassenpositie en partijen. Linkse partijen vertegenwoordigen de arbeidersklasse en streven naar economische herverdeling terwijl rechtse partijen de middenklasse vertegenwoordigen en ernaar streven de economisch gunstige positie van de middenklasse te consolideren. Daarom wordt vanouds gevonden dat arbeiders vaker op een linkse partij stemmen en leden van de middenklasse op een rechtse. Echter, dit patroon van een links stemmende arbeidersklasse en een rechts stemmende middenklasse is in veel Westerse landen aan erosie onderhevig, zonder dat duidelijk is waarom. In dit proefschrift is getracht te verklaren waarom arbeiders in de loop der tijd steeds rechtser en leden van de middenklasse steeds linkser zijn gaan stemmen. Omdat, zoals uit onderzoek van Paul Nieuwbeerta blijkt, aan klassenanalyse ontleende hypothesen hiervoor weinig vruchtbaar zijn gebleken, is gekozen voor een alternatieve benadering. Voornamelijk voortbouwend op het werk van Ronald Inglehart, wordt in deze benadering gesteld dat de opkomst van een nieuw politiek conflict, dat niets te maken heeft met het oude klassenconflict, verantwoordelijk is voor de erosie van het klassieke patroon van een links stemmende arbeidersklasse en een rechts stemmende middenklasse. De drie onderzoeksvragen die ik hierbij gebruikt heb, zal ik hieronder kort weergeven en de voornaamste resultaten samenvatten. ; Since 2002 Peter Achterberg (1977) has been working at the department of Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and at the Amsterdam School for Social science Research (ASSR). He is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow studying the changing support for the welfare state and changing patterns of solidarity in Western societies. He has published some papers in: European Journal of Political Research, International Sociology, Mens & Maatschappij, Sociologie, Sociologische Gids, Mens & Maatschappij, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie, and Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken.

The purpose of this article is to understand why the traditional pattern of a leftist working class and a rightist middle class has declined over the years in many Western countries. Two explanatory theories are put forward. The material explanation suggests that because Western countries have become richer over the years, issues tied to class conflict have become less salient while new, cultural issues of individual freedom versus order have become more salient. The second explanation, focusing on the process of secularization, suggests that cultural issues have become more salient as church membership has declined in these countries. It is studied whether the emergence of a new political culture has weakened economic voting motivations for the working class to vote left and the middle class to vote right, whereas it has strengthened cultural voting motives leading members of the working class to vote right and members of the middle class to vote left. Hypotheses are tested using party-manifesto data and World Values Survey Data. It is concluded that as societies become more secular cultural issues become more salient, causing cultural voting motives to undermine the conventional pattern of a left-wing working class and right-wing middle class.

Paper prepared for the workshop Collapsing Cultural Canons: Elite Culture, Popular Culture, and Politics in Late Modernity Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille, France, October 28-29, 2004

Paper prepared for the workshop Collapsing Cultural Canons: Elite Culture, Popular Culture, and Politics in Late Modernity Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille, France, October 28-29, 2004

The traditional class approach to politics maintains that the working class 'naturally' votes for left-wing parties because those represent their economic interests. This traditional working class voting pattern has however become less typical, giving rise to today's 'Death of Class Debate' in political sociology. Against this background, we study why so many people, working and middle class alike, today vote for parties that do not represent their 'real class interests'. Critically elaborating on Lipset's work on working-class authoritarianism and Inglehart's on post -materialism, we first confirm that 'natural' voting perfectly complies with the logic of class analysis. 'Unnatural' voting, however, is not driven by economic voting motivations and class, but by cultural voting motivations and cultural capital. Right wing working class voting is thus caused by its cultural conservatism that stems from its limited cultural capital. Voting for the two small leftist parties in Dutch politics underscores the significance of this cultural explanation: those with limited cultural capital and culturally conservative values vote for the Socialist Party ('old left') rather than the Greens ('new left'). The spectre of the rightist working class that haunts today's political sociology can thus be dispelled by breaking the traditional monopoly of the one-sided class approach and give a complementary cultural approach its proper place in the explanation of voting.

First we investigate how the political culture in western countries has changed over time. Three theoretical views are put to the test using data on party-manifestos. The first predicts that only new-leftist issues will increase in salience. The second predicts that both new-leftist and new-rightist issues will emerge at the same time. The third, which is empirically corroborated, predicts that first new-leftist issues will emerge followed by the rise in newrightist issues. Second, we investigate how the emergence of these new issues has affected

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source (Nieuwbeerta & Ganzeboom 1996), this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences, rather than a decline of class voting proves responsible for the decline of the traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less, but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead – it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline of class voting, due to the widespread application of the Alford index.

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source - the international social mobility and politics file - this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences

By means of a reanalysis of the most relevant data source—the International Social Mobility and Politics File—this article criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase in crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences rather than a decline in class voting, proves responsible for the decline of traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead—it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline in class voting because of the widespread application of the so-called Alford index.

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source – the International Social Mobility and Politics File – this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase in cross

Abstract A major shortcoming in the existing literature on welfare state legitimacy is that it cannot explain when social policy designs follow public preferences and when public opinion follows existing policy designs and why. Scholars examining the influence of public opinion on welfare policies as well as scholars investigating institutional influences on individual welfare attitudes find empirical evidence to support both relationships. While a relationship in both directions is plausible, scholars have yet to thoroughly investigate the mutual relationship between these two. Consequently, we still do not know under which circumstances welfare institutions invoke public approval of welfare policies and under which circumstances public opinion drives welfare policy. Taking a quantitative approach to public opinion and welfare state policies in the Netherlands, this paper addresses this issue in an attempt to increase our understanding of welfare state legitimacy. The results show that individual opinions influence relatively new policies, policies which are not yet fully established and where policy designs are still evolving and developing. Social policy, on the other hand, is found to influence individual opinions on established and highly institutionalised policies, but does not influence individual opinions in relatively new areas of social policy.

Imprisonment rates are presumed to have risen in the west, and it is argued by certain social scientists that this can be explained by a comprehensive process of economic neoliberalisation. In this paper, we develop an alternative explanation, focussing on the rise of a 'new political culture'. Longitudinal cross-national analyses are performed to test the tenability of these theories. First, it is demonstrated that some countries have been witnessing a trend of penalisation, but that there is no overall trend. Second, economic explanations for variations in imprisonment rates prove to be untenable. Third, it is shown that a new-rightist demand for social order, which is not found to be inspired by economic neo-liberalisation, provides a better explanation. This leads to the conclusion that high incarceration rates can be understood as being part of a right-authoritarian politico-cultural complex.

Various studies have demonstrated that while the lower educated support economic redistribution more than the higher educated do, they nonetheless dislike welfare support for immigrants more strongly. This paper aims to explain this remarkably particularistic application of the principle of economic egalitarianism ('welfare chauvinism') by testing three theories by means of survey data representative for the Dutch population (N = 1,972). The first theory asserts that the low level of political competence of the lower educated is responsible, the second focuses on their weak economic position, and the third claims that their limited amount of cultural capital is decisive. Only the latter explanation is confirmed and implications for debates about ethnocentrism, deservingness and welfare state legitimacy, as well as the ideological profile of the lower-educated working class are discussed.