POLS1002 Week 7 Notes

Political Ideologies

• Political ideologies are coherent belief structures shaping political parties' positions on interrelated conflict dimensions.
• They represent programmatic commitments resistant to change, reflecting fundamental orientations toward social organization.
• Ideologies serve as interpretive frameworks, connecting positions on different issues.

Origin of Left and Right

• The terms "left" and "right" originated during the French Revolution in the National Assembly of 1789.
• Revolution supporters sat on the left, while those supporting traditional institutions (monarchy, aristocracy, Church) sat on the right.

Left-Right Dimension

• The left-right dimension is a longstanding axis of political competition.
• It serves as the dominant framework, particularly in Europe.
• Post-World War II, domestic debate narrowed to economic issues like the state's role, taxes, and welfare spending.

Social Cleavages

• Ideologies are socially rooted, not just intellectual constructs.
• Cleavage-based ideologies are rooted in collective identities, grassroots movements, and hierarchical organizations (Hooghe & Marks, 2017).

Definition of Cleavage

• Cleavage = social conflict, opposition, division in society.
• Dimensions (Bartolini and Mair, 1990):
  1. Social: Groups, strata based on basic human characteristics (social classes, religions, languages, ethnicity).
  2. Cultural: Values, beliefs, trust, collective identity, solidarity, loyalty, belonging.
  3. Organizational: Structures like churches, trade unions, and political parties defending group interests.
• Cleavages go beyond opinions, orientations, and alignments.

Origin of Cleavages (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967)

• Cleavages arise from similar historical circumstances like the Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther, 1517).
• These divisions pre-date parties and mass democracy but influenced and still influence European political supply.

Political Cleavages (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967)

• Cleavage: historically, socially determined social or cultural line.
• Divides citizens into groups.
• Cleavages become politicized (religious parties, workers’ parties).
• They determine political systems, especially in Europe.
• New cleavages: integration/multiculturalism, environmental issues, winners/losers of globalization.

Two Revolutions

• Two fundamental transformations (social, economic, political) in the 19th and 20th centuries lead to parties and party systems.

Parties and Democratization

• Democratization (Dahl) involves:
  • Absolutism
  • Liberal and national movements.
  • Civil rights
  • Political rights
  • Social rights
  • Parliamentarism
• Liberalization:
  • Restricted franchise.
  • Birth of competition.
  • Intra-parliamentary origin of parties: Liberals, Conservatives.
• Mass democracy:
  • Extension of franchise.
  • Workers and peasants included.
  • Extra-parliamentary origin of parties (unions and social movements): Socialists, Agrarian parties.
• Industrial Revolution and National Revolution are key factors.

Party-Cleavage Connection

• Lipset and Rokkan identify the fundamental transformations of society responsible for creating cleavages.

Cleavage-Party Connection

• Every country has its own set of cleavages.
• Not all cleavages automatically produce parties.
• Importance of salience of conflict.
• Some parties absorb several cleavages (e.g., religious & capital).
• Cross-cutting cleavages lead to multi-partism and moderation.
• Parties institutionalize conflicts, continuing political conflict even if social conflict vanishes.

Frozen Cleavage Structures

• Lipset and Rokkan's main theory: persistence of cleavages.
• Persistence of collective identities (feeling of common interest).
• Necessity to keep defending distinct interests in governmental policies.
• Full mobilization (saturation of electoral market):
  • No extension of suffrage to new groups after 1920.
  • All electorates have already been mobilized and aligned.
  • Making it more difficult for new parties to attract voters.
• Electoral laws (produced by incumbent parties) perpetuate existing cleavages.
  • Majoritarian systems limit cleavage expression to one.
  • Proportional representation maintains even minor cleavages.
• Mass parties socialization:
  • Parties sustain cleavages by encapsulating their voters.
  • Socialist and Christian mass parties create a feeling of belonging to subcultures, fostering long-term attachments.

Electoral Change

• Major theme in comparative politics since the late 1960s: erosion or change of cleavages due to three factors.
  1. Change in social structure:
     • Numerical decline of traditional parties’ clienteles.
     • Decline in farmers, blue-collar workers, and petite bourgeoisie.
     • Increase in white-collar employees from private and public sectors, with no specific electoral loyalty.
     • Convergence in lifestyles, less class distinction.
     • Secularization of society, decline of religious identities and practice.
     • This widening available electorate could float between parties or realign on other cleavages/dimensions.
  2. Change in electoral behavior:
     • Decline in cohesion, collective identity feeling between social segments and parties.
     • Individualization of political preferences (education, media, sophistication) and electoral behavior (less a matter of expressing social identity, more of an instrumental vote).
     • Workers do not only vote for left parties.
  3. Change of party organizations:
     • Parties adapt to new circumstances (catch-all parties) by appealing less to specific segments of the electorate (and party members).

Silent Revolution and Counter-Silent Revolution

• Inglehart (1977): The Silent (post-industrial) Revolution.
• Materialism vs. post-materialism: libertarian values (cultural dimension).
• Emergence of new values after World War II: based on psychological model of hierarchy of needs.
  • Physical needs: MATERIALIST (national security, law and order, full employment, economic growth, private property, tradition, authority) → SECURED.
  • Psychological needs: POST-MATERIALIST (tolerance, participation, freedom of expression, environment protection, feminism, pacifism, economic aid) → NEW.

Silent Revolution and Socialization

• Interaction with socialization processes: cohorts.
• Older generations (born/socialized before WWII) maintain materialist values.
• Newer generations (more educated, belong to new middle classes) are socialized in peace (international security), growth (economic security), welfare state (social security).

The Silent Revolution: New Social Movements

1. Civil rights (1950s): US.
2. Pacifism (1960s-): Vietnam, Cold War, US missiles in Europe, Iraq.
3. Feminism (1970s): Equality in education, work, family, politics.
4. Greens (1980s): Protection of environment.
5. Anti-globalization (2000s): Seattle, Genoa, Occupy Wall Street.

• Impact on party system is limited:
  • New parties: Greens → electoral success AND influence on traditional parties.
  • New left parties.
  • Sometimes, old parties absorb this new cleavage.
  • Main expression through non-conventional participation (≠ elections), in new social movements.

Counter Revolution

• Recrudescence of materialist politics because of new insecurities (Ignazi 1992).
  • Economic: threat to labor markets through:
    • Globalization and supra-national integration.
    • Immigration (economic dimension).
    • Financial crisis (austerity politics, ‘no alternative’; unemployment, ‘no future’).
  • Cultural: threat to identity through immigration (cultural dimension).
  • Social: retrenchment of welfare state.
  • Political: technocratic governance (de-nationalization; powerlessness).
  • International: terrorism.

Radical Right Parties

• Authoritarian.
• Nationalist.
• Law and Order.
• Welfare Chauvinism (often but not always).
• Examples: AfD, FN/RN, Fidesz, Lega Nord, True Finns, UKIP/Brexit, FPÖ, BZÖ, Danish People’s Party, PVV, Sweden Democrats, SVP.
• Protest parties (pensioners, tax-payer parties).
• Extreme-right parties (Jobbik, Golden Dawn, NPD).
• Anti-democratic.
• Libertarian demagogues (Beppe Grillo, Pim Fortuyn).

Counter Revolution and the EU

• Backlash against the European Union: Stands for liberalization and privatization.
• New political cleavage particular for left parties:
  • Relied on state intervention in economy.
  • Traditional electorates of left parties facing competition from Eastern Europe (cheap labor) due to working force mobility.
• But also for conservative parties defending identity/sovereignty of their nation-state.

Old Structure

• Traditional cleavage structure: special configuration per country.
• Traditional left and right.
  • Left: state intervention in economy, social equality.
  • Right: independent economy, social hierarchy.
• But:
  • Silent Revolution: liberal values become more important.
  • Counter Revolution: traditional values become more important.

Kitschelt's New Ideological Space

• The shift of the axis of competition from Socialism/Capitalism to Libertarian/Authoritarian.

GAL-TAN

• GAL: Green, Alternative, Liberal.
• TAN: Traditional, Authoritarian, Nationalist.

GAL-TAN and Left-Right in Central and Eastern Europe

• Different dimensions of party competition exist but vary in Central and Eastern Europe.