Articles

Stille revolutie, contra-revolutie of cultureel conflict ? : Veranderingen in de politieke cultuur en hun invloed op het verband tussen klassenpositie en stemgedrag

---

Abstract

This paper dea ls with the linkage between changes in the political culture and changes in class-party alignments. First, we investigate how the political culture in Western countries has changed over time. Three views are tested 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 arise in new rightist issues.  Second, we investigate how the emergence of these new issues has affected the traditional class-party alignments. We show that the middle class increasingly votes left-wing as newleftist issues become more important and that the working class increasingly votes rightwing as new-rightist issues become more important. The middle class also appears to alienate from the traditional party of their class as new-rightist issues rise in salience.

How to Cite:

Van der Waal, J. & Achterberg, P., (2006) “Stille revolutie, contra-revolutie of cultureel conflict ? : Veranderingen in de politieke cultuur en hun invloed op het verband tussen klassenpositie en stemgedrag”, Res Publica 48(4), 369-392.