Social structure and party choice in Western Europe. A comparative longitudinal study

Abstract:

This work presents a comparative analysis of the relationship between social structure and party choice in eight Western European countries - Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The book is organised over seven chapters. The first gives an introduction to the theory, a review of the literature on social structure and party choice, comment on the grouping of political parties into party families, party choice variable and the division between socialist and non-socialist party groups, and the statistical measures used in the study. Chapter two deals with party choice by religious denomination and chapter three addresses church religiosity and party choice in relation to church attendance. Chapter four examines urban-rural contrasts. Chapter five then focuses on education to illustrate the cleavage from the industrial revolution. The changes in party choice made by men and women, over time, are examined in chapter six. Chapter seven presents multivariate analysis to illustrate the decline, convergence and transformation of cleavage politics.

The book will interest scholars and students engaged in political sociology and psephology.

Oddbjørn Knutsen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo.