The materialist/post‐materialist value dimension as a party cleavage in the Nordic countries

Abstract

Ronald Inglehart's theory of new politics provides a way of examining the role of materialist and post‐materialist values as a party cleavage in the Nordic countries. First, certain critical issues and events have contributed to the rise of the materialist/post‐materialist (MPM) dimension in the Nordic setting. Second, an analysis of the MPM‐dimension reveals that new left parties or their equivalents have a pronounced post‐materialist electorate. The MPM‐dimension emerges as a stable and often strong source of party cleavage, but varying in intensity from one country to another.