GO 259 Unit 4 - Party Systems & Cleavages

Cleavage Theory (Lipset & Rokkan)

• party systems reflect deep social conflicts (“cleavages”)

Center-Periphery Cleavage

state V. regional/minority identities

Ex.)

• Catalona

• Scotland

• Basque

• Flemish nationalism

Bale: minority nationalism emerges where cultural/linguistic groups feel excluded by centralized states

Church-State Cleavage

1. Religion V. Secular state-building

2. Historically huge in:

   1. Netherlands

   2. Belgium

   3. Germany

   4. Italy

Rural-Urban Cleavage

1. Agricultural interests V. industrial/commercial interests

2. Connected to:

   1. Modernization

   2. Industrialization

   3. Economic transformation

Class Cleavage

1. Workers V. owners/capital

2. Probably the most important 20th century cleavage

3. Produced:

   1. Socialist parties

   2. Labor parties

   3. Unions

   4. Welfare states

Freezing Hypothesis

Party systems “froze” around these cleavages

• Social divisions became stable party alignments

• Ex.)

  • Workers vote left,

  • Religious conservatives vote Christian Democratic.

  • Etc.

Dealignment

Traditional loyalties weaken

• People become:

  • Less tied to class

  • Less religious

  • Less partisan

  • More volatile voters

Evidence of Party Decline

• Secularization = weaker religious parties

• Deindustrialization = weaker labor identity

• Individualism = weaker collective parties

• Globalization = economic insecurity

• Media change = weaker party attachment

Deunionization

Ebbinghaus | European Unions face:

• Membership erosion

• Structural economic change

• Labor market flexibilization

• Weaker bargaining power

Challenger Parties

They Challenge:

• Mainstream elites

• Established parties

• Consensus politics

Can be:

• Radical right

• Populist

• Anti-establishment

• Nationalist

• Eurosceptic

Mainstream Party Decline

Bale & Kaltwasser: mainstream center-left and center-right parties have weakened across Europe

Especially: social democratic decline

Why Social-Dems Declined

Traditional worker base shrank

Because

• Deindustrialization

• Service economies

• Globalization

• Union decline

Also many center-left parties move toward

• Technocracy

• Neoliberalism

• Moderatoin

This weakened class identity

Rise of Radical Right (Caiani)

Caiani

Economic crisis + refugee crisis created favorable conditions for radical right mobilization

Core radical right themes:

• Nationalism

• Anti-immigratoin

• Welfare chauvinism

• Anti-elite politics

• Cultural protection

• Sovereignty

Local Socio-Cultural Decline (Bolet)

Bolet argues: decline of community institutions creates:

• Isolation

• Status anxiety

• Cultural loss, which can increase radical right support

Example: British pub closures | not just economics but also: identity + belonging

Combines: culture, economics, locality, populism

Economic V. Cultural Explanations

Economic explanation - people support radical right because of:

• UE

• Inequality

• Economic insecurity

Cultural explanation - people react against:

• Immigration

• Multiculturalism

• Social liberalism

• Globalization

Protest Politics in Europe (Borbath & Gessler)

Borbath & Gessler - protest has become normalized in Europe

BUT - patterns differ across Europe

Important Regional Difference

Region	Protest tendency
Northwestern Europe	More left protest
Eastern Europe	More right protest

Eastern Europe

After communism, “left” politics often became associated with:

• Old communist regimes

• Corruption

• Authoritarian pasts

Thus, right-wing protest became stronger

Protest Politics

Borbath & Gessler - protest has become normalized in Europe

BUT - patterns differ across Europe

Important Regional Difference

Region	Protest tendency
Northwestern Europe	More left protest
Eastern Europe	More right protest

Dimensions of Resilience (Youngs & Panchulidze)

democratic resilience means: democracy’s ability to resist threats and renew itself

Three Dimensions of Resilience

Type	Meaning
Institutional	Courts, elections, constitutions
Societal	Civil society, protest, participation
Transnational	EU-level protections

Key Insight

Europe has:

• Resisted full autocratization BUT faces major democratic strain

Online Disinformation (Humprecht et al.)

Humprecht et al: countries differ in resilience to disinformation

Factors influencing resilience:

• Trust

• Media systems

• Polarization

• Institutional strength

• Media literacy

Northern Europe often more resilient than polarized systems

European Distinctiveness (Crepaz)

Crepaz: Europe differs from the U.S. through:

• Stronger welfare states

• Stronger labor politics

• Stronger state role

• Social democracy traditions

Cleavage

• Durable social division that becomes politically organized and reinforces itself over time

• Usually

  • Identity

  • Social group

  • Interests

  • Organizations

  • Parties