Identification with Class and Political Perspective

Abstract

A LTHOUGH CLASS, AS OLIVER GARCEAU remarked, has been a central and perhaps the most persistent conceptual schema in piolitical theory,' the relationship between people's class position and their political behavior remained a neglected area of empirical analysis. To be sure, relevant sample survey studies have been undertaken in recent years, but they have been framed largely within conceptual schemata little affected by systematic political theory.2 An initial difficulty in the study of class and political behavior is the bewildering and disconcerting amount of disagreement concerning definitions of class. As one sociologist pointed out, is no general agreement among sociologists at the present time as to what factor or combination of factors delineates a social class. All concur that the concept of class deals with the horizontal stratification of a population, but whether it is based on economic power, occupation, status feelings, cultural differences, or their combination, and to what extent separate group life is indicated by the term, are questions on which there is no substantial agreement.3 Most regrettable in contemporary class discussion is the failure to relate the class variable to some theory of social conduct without which the concept of class must necessarily remain meaningless, as well as to specify the purpose to which any particular concept of class is to be put. As a sophisticated political scientist pointed