The transformation of political cleavages in swiss metropolitan areas

Abstract

The rural-urban cleavage is becoming less significant to understand politics in Switzerland. The increasing urbanisation and metropolitanization in mind, the aim of this paper is to explore the existence and the relevance of cleavages within Swiss metropolitan areas. We do this on the basis of the analyses of structural and political change in seven metropolitan areas. These include a typology of communes as well as bi-variate and multi-level regression analyses of electoral turnout and voter cleavage scores on four major political cleavages. The results suggest the existence of politically relevant territorial cleavages within the metropolitan areas under scrutiny. Whilst the core cities tend towards a position characterised by left vote and cultural openness, affinities of poor and middle class communes tend to be with the political right and cultural demarcation, whereas affluent and low density communes tend to combine right vote with cultural openness. In addition, the results suggest that the cleavages within metropolitan areas have transformed over the last 30 years. This echoes findings by other authors who have argued that a cultural dimension between openness and demarcation has been added to the socio-economic dimension of political cleavages in Switzerland.