Klassengebonden stemgedrag en de nieuwe politieke cultuur: stemgedrag en de saillantie van politieke issues in partijprogramma's

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This paper investigates the questions how the political culture in twenty western countries has changed in the postwar period and how these changes in political culture are related to the decline in class voting in (most of) these countries, which has been reported by Nieuwbeerta (1995). It appears that old issues, which are related to class-conflict, have declined slightly in the postwar period, while new issues such as ecological and cultural issues have risen in salience remarkably in the same period. Our analysis shows that the most important determinant of the degree of contextual class voting is cultural issue salience. In the end of this paper I discuss the implications of my findings for the 'death of class' debate.