Class, Status, and "Reactive Ethnic Cleavages": The Social Bases of Political Regionalism

Abstract

Two conflicting perspectives on the nature of political regionalism in Britain are examined. The first, based on a developmental perspective, argues that there is a high degree of regional uniformity in party support in Britain. The second, based on the theory of reactive cleavages, supports the view that Celtic political distinctiveness is a persistent feature of British politics. Both perspectives are found to be inadequate because of errors in conceptualization and design. One such error is the assumption that class affinity and status-group affinity as bases for political action are mutually exclusive orientations. Supporters of both perspectives argue that the predominance of class implies that status affinity is relatively unimportant and vice versa. A serious design defect concerns vote dichotomization; typically, researchers have examined the votes for only a single party. This paper demonstrates that the analysis of Conservative votes supports the theory of reactive cleavages, while the analysis of Labour votes supports the developmental perspective. Together, these findings support a third argument-that in economically peripheral areas, an appeal to regional or ethnic interests by the local dominant strata may be provoked by local class cleavages.