Political radicalism in the working class and in the middle class

Abstract

Abstract. While political radicalism has most often been associated with the working class, there have been instances of middle class radical movements. In the 1960s Frank Parkin developed a theory which attempted to distinguish between the two class forms of political radicalism. In the light of the social and political developments of recent decades, which have seen several examples of middle class political radicalism, this article attempts to assess the continuing validity of Parkin's argument through an analysis of survey responses from young people in Denmark. The results show some inconsistency not only with Parkin's theory, but also with the arguments of both Marxist and postmaterialist theories, and suggest that more detailed empirical research is needed on the relationship between social class and political radicalism.