To “Educate their Volition to Dance in their Chains”

Abstract

The second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries in Western Europe mark a period of suffrage expansion, the development of mass party organization, and effective incorporation of the newly enfranchised citizenry into political life. The resulting realignments of the interwar period form a backdrop against which the current discussion of realignment takes place; yet this very discussion begs the question of stability as well as the dynamics of the preceding realignment. Path models of these processes in Britain between 1885 and 1950 show the fundamentals of realignment emerged in an earlier period, 1885-1910, crystallized in the 1918 election with suffrage expansion, and remained stable until 1945-1950, when the first signs of weakening appeared. Latent variable partial least squares (LVPLS) constructs dynamic path models of the mobilization, partisan realignment, and social bases of politics. The results are tested further with maximum likelihood (ML) methods.