Ideological Cleavages Research Articles

Long-term tendencies in the electoral behavior and the geography of voting in St. Petersburg: 1989–1995

This paper studies the basis and nature of the long-term factors that may have influenced the electoral behavior of St. Petersburgers between 1989 and 1995 from the perspective of geography. Our analysis shows two distinct periods in St. Petersburg's recent electoral history marked by differing behavioral motivations of voters in the city. The first period was marked by only one ideological cleavage between ‘marketers’ and ‘hard-liners’. In 1993 protest motivation managed to erode the predominance of ideology as the determining variable in voting behavior, and began to act as a new independent variable. This marked the beginning of the second period. Four major groupings of St. Petersburg electorate are described in terms of the basic ideological cleavages, party affiliations and geographical gravity centers.

Social and ideological cleavage formation in post‐communist hungary

(1995). Social and ideological cleavage formation in post‐communist hungary. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 47, No. 7, pp. 1177-1204.

Presidents, Parliaments, & Good Government

Presidents, Parliaments, & Good Government Sergio Fabbrini (bio) A “good government,” it is reasonable to assume, is one that can accomplish the essential executive tasks of 1) choosing and formulating policies in a way that expresses a clear symbolic direction, and 2) guaranteeing that those policies will receive effective implementation. In performing the former task, the executive must convey a sense of public purpose, forged through interaction with public opinion, that counteracts the inertia of well-organized minorities and other powerful interest groups. In performing the latter task, the executive must make its decisions “stick” in order to carry out coherent policies. Clearly, it is vital that an executive be capable of both symbolic coherence and effective implementation; the difficulty is that each task requires a distinct institutional process for its realization, and maintaining the two processes simultaneously within the same system is not easy. Effectiveness requires a government with majority support in the legislature to which it is accountable and an internally consistent program. The government should be stimulated and constrained by an opposition ready to step in with a program of its own should the incumbents lose the confidence of the voters. Symbolic coherence, on the other hand, requires the presence of a head of government who commands electoral legitimacy on his own account and can, if necessary, counter the conservative tendencies of his own legislative coalition and interest base when innovation and the addressing of new social demands are what is needed. Of course, these two analytical criteria of “good government” are more applicable to the institutional arrangements of competitive [End Page 128] democracies (where opposing parties alternate in government) than to those found in consensual or consociational democracies (where the government incorporates all the major parties through proportional representation [PR] and broad coalitions). A look at the countries of the democratic “West” (defined here as including Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Japan) shows that all the consensual or consociational democracies use both electoral systems based on PR and bicameral parliaments to ensure a broad representation with room for all political options. These arrangements in turn generate strong incentives for multiparty, coalition governments. Because political parties—and hence governing coalitions—in consensual or consociational democracies are based on deep ethnic, communal, or ideological cleavages that they accept as unalterable, they tend to seek political stability first of all. The need to keep all of the coalition partners happy may take precedence over governmental effectiveness and symbolic coherence alike. In competitive democracies, on the other hand, stability is typically more assured because society is not divided by profound fault lines. Such democracies are usually spared the stark choice between stability and good government that democracies in divided societies are compelled to make. Italy before 1993 provided an extreme case of consensual parliamentary democracy. Thanks to intense ideological polarization, Italy had for almost all of the five decades after the close of the Second World War an endless round of leaderless, ineffectual governments. Not surprisingly, these governments were highly unstable; from 1945 to 1989, their average life span was just over a year. Yet there was an extraordinary stability and continuity of personnel at the highest levels, because the same centrist parties made up every ruling coalition. The only case that is comparable is that of the French Fourth Republic (1946–58), also a consensual parliamentary democracy, where the average government during the entire period between 1950 and 1958 lasted for just 8.6 months. No wonder that in Italy, a good government has been thought of as one that can last rather than one that can act. To eliminate the troublesome tendency to collapse “good government” into mere political stability, then, it is analytically preferable to discuss the question of good government with reference only to competitive democracies. If a “good” government is one that can in practice maximize both its symbolic coherence in the formulation of policy and its actual effectiveness in the implementation of policy, then I am led to conclude that each of the three institutional systems found in democracy (presidentialism, semipresidentialism, and parliamentarism) offers at best a partial and unsatisfactory institutional approximation of authentically good government. In the course of explaining why I am led...

Election manifestos and policy‐oriented economic voting

Abstract. Many previous analyses of aggregate‐level policy‐oriented economic voting hypotheses have been based on expert judgements of incumbents' ideology. These judgements first of all concentrate on long term characteristics of ideological stands and, more importantly, do not reflect parties' positions on economic issues per se. Using parties' arguments on economic issues in their election manifestoes, this article develops a left‐right ideology dimension that reflects parties' relative positions on economic issues for 163 elections in 16 countries in the post‐World War II period. The analysis suggests that over time there are very stable differences in parties' ideological positions on economic issues. Despite increasing clarity of ideological cleavages on economic issues, and persistent evidence of diverging economic policy outcomes in the literature, no distinct reward and punishment by the electorate is observed, associated with the ideological stands of the incumbents. Accordingly, the policy‐oriented economic voting hypothesis is rejected and possible reasons for this phenomenon is discussed.

Islam and the West: Can Turkey bridge the gap?

Religion is on the rise across the world. Talk of a Christian-Muslim confrontation to replace the Cold War ideological cleavage is widespread. Misperceptions among both Muslims and Christians reinforce confrontational rhetoric. The instant images of Islam as a monolithic, violent and aggressive religion do not help. The West needs to rethink its traditional views of Islam, starting with the recognition that there exist many different brands of Islam. The chronic instability of Muslim countries has many causes other than religion. Islamic fundamentalism coincides with high unemployment among the fast growing young populations of most Muslim countries. And Turkey, as the model of a European state which combines modern capitalism and secular democracy with a moderate brand of Islam, could find a credible role for itself as a bridge between the two religions and cultures. For an Islam ready to look to its future, not its past, Turkey is needed to demonstrate a viable model, particularly for the newly independent Turkic republics of the former Soviet Union. Only secular, genuine and strong democracies can survive the test of Muslim fundamentalism.

Twenty-Five Years After Dunn's Article

Twenty-five years after Dunn (1968) questioned the efficacy of special classes, some are questioning Special Education itself. Dunn's polemical reaction to civil rights concerns was already permeating school reform in the 1960s. His legacy was an ideological cleavage between special education and advocates for minorities. General education created segregationist tendencies for economic reasons. Hence, contemporary rhetoric about “full inclusion” may fail. Couching special education in constitutional terms resulted in gradual substitution of procedural compliance for instructional innovation. Dunn ignored the importance of school context. The present authors focus on Tolerance Theory and analysis of the effects of school environments.

The persistence of ideological cleavage in voting on abortion legislation in the House of Representatives, 1973-1988.

The longitudinal analysis reported here applies the same regression model to 54 roll calls on abortion bills in the House of Representatives during the eight Congresses from 1973 to 1988. A Guttman Scaling procedure is used that allows comparison across the eight Houses. The strongest predictor in all eight Houses is the ADA score followed by religion (Catholic, non-Catholic) ; representatives who vote liberal and who are non-Catholics tend to be pro-choice. Religion seems to be the likely reason why party is not a significant predictor of voting on abortion. To validate that hypothesis, separate regressions are created for Democrats and Republicans since 1981, and the results show that deviations among Democrats from pro-choice voting is due largely to religion. However, the causal relationship between ideology and pro-choice voting has been strengthened across these four Houses with an accompanying decline in the importance of religion. So a realignment in the House may be occurring given that Catholic Democrats are beginning to vote their ideological rather than their religious preference on abortion.

ARE SOCIAL CLASSES DYING?

New forms of social stratification are emerging. Much of our thinking about stratification - from Marx, Weber, and others - must be recast to capture these new developments. Social class was the key theme of past stratification work. Yet class is an increasingly outmoded concept. Class stratification implies that people can be differentiated hierarchically on one or more criteria into distinct layers, classes. Class analysis has grown increasingly inadequate in recent decades as traditional hierarchies have declined and new social differences have emerged. The cumulative impact of these changes is fundamentally altering the nature of social stratification - placing past theories in need of substantial modification. This paper outlines first some general propositions about the sources of class stratification and its decline. The decline of hierarchy, and its spread across situses, is emphasised. The general propositions are applied to political parties and ideological cleavages, the economy, the family, and social mobility. These developments appear most clearly in North America and Western Europe, but our propositions also help interpret some of the tensions and factors driving change in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and other societies.

A Comparative Spatial Analysis of European Party Systems*

This article examines mass perceptions of political parties in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, West Germany, the Netherlands and France. For each country we construct a map in which the parties, voters, and demographic groups are located to provide a visual and spatial overview of the structure of electoral competition. Two dimensions are adequate for displaying the main ideological cleavages in each of the countries. In each case there is a strong left‐right dimension combined with a more culturally defined and usually weaker second competitive dimension. In general, we find that no parties occupy the center areas of the space, which are usually dense with voters. This leads us to question the adequacy of the traditional spatial model of elections for describing competition in multiparty systems.

The Frontier, the Union, and Stephen A. Douglas (review)

72CTVTL WAR HISTORY transformation, the ideological cleavage, the moral clash, the abyss between free and slave labor, the religious and ethnic hostility—all of which operated profoundly to mold antebellum politics (and its leaders)— are given at best glancing attention. In addition, Peterson asks his reader to accept on faith his statement that Webster, Clay and Calhoun "were representatives, spokesmen, ultimately personifications, of their respective sections: East, West, and South" (5). Can we derive the consciousness of a people from the goals and aspirations of the leaders? What of the diversity of voices that "East, West, and South" subsumes? The tight spotlight on three statesmen leaves too much that is crucial in the shadows. In a very real sense, they were not the cause but the result of basic changes elsewhere. That does not deny their individual genius and efficacy, but the zigs and zags of the leaders was only a part of politics and politics only a part of the broad transformation of antebellum America. This is not to say that Peterson's study is a frothy, lightweight pageturner . It is a serious, substantial work that instructs as well as delights. To criticize it for incompleteness is perhaps unfair. Nonetheless, its reticence about the impersonal but powerful developments that molded American politics and its single-minded devotion to individual "greatness " may mislead unwary readers, especially lay readers who will rightfully be drawn to The Great Triumvirate. James L. Roark Emory University 7"Ae Frontier, the Union, and Stephen A. Douglas. By Robert W. Johannsen. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Pp. xix, 313. $34.95.) During his long career Robert W. Johannsen has been one of the leading historians of the 185Os. In addition to his well-known biography of Stephen A. Douglas, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, he has edited a collection of Douglas's letters and written Frontier Politics and the Sectional Conflict. He has also written on the Mexican War and published an edition of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The essays in this collection illustrate the interests that informed his books and show his remarkable command of the history between the start of the Mexican War and the Civil War. Thirteen of these fifteen essays are reprinted as originally published and are so placed that the subject of one generally flows easily into the subject of the next. The two new pieces, given as addresses in 1978 and 1986, end the work. This collection is more unified than similar publications because the author's work has concentrated on sectionalism in the 185Os, in which the major issues proved to be highly interconnected. This also means there is frequent repetition—this may BOOK REVIEWS73 bother some readers, but it should not be irksome because much of the overlap serves to emphasize important points that need repetition. Johannsen notes in his preface that these essays focus on "slavery, secession, and the nature of the Union [which] came to dominate political thought and activity during the decade of the 185Os" (ix). One of the key figures in this debate, of course, was Stephen Douglas, and his policy of popular sovereignty and its precise meaning is a major theme of these essays. It is clear that Johannsen has a more positive view of Douglas than most historians have; the Little Giant was not a mere opportunist, nor was he any more racist than most of his countrymen. Perhaps because my own state celebrated its centennial in 1989, I am also struck by another theme, perhaps unintended, which is that many states have a fascinating history prior to statehood that has been largely overlooked. Territorial history is a field with plenty of empty spaces. Douglas was a western man, looking always to the future of the inland empire. Thus he favored western expansion, railroads, free land, and especially self-government. Oregon was one of the first tests of popular sovereignty, and when Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he seemed to Oregonians to be supporting their quest for self-government. They overlooked the slavery question and instead saw "an affirmation by the national government of their right to self-government no matter where they happened to be living...

Community Mobilization

In this brief essay, we seek to add to the discussion on the prospects of community mobilization by offering four major points. The impact of human agency, not only structural conditions, must be considered. Currently, there are distinct signs of grass-roots mobilization and a returning activist consciousness. These trends and events must be seen, however, against the broad restructuring of cities, which has dramatically altered the context for organizers and presented new, formidable barriers. Lastly, the sharpening of ideological cleavage is fundamental to mobilize constituencies and bridge the community/class dichotomy that continues to limit most efforts.

The Missing Link: Political Activists and Support for School Prayer

The Missing Link: Political Activists and Support for School Prayer

The Impact of Structural and Ideological Party Cleavages in West European Democracies: A Comparative Empirical Analysis

This article examines the relative impact of different political cleavages on party preference in a comparative West European context. The point of departure is the so-called ‘new polities’ theory, which postulates that the value polarization between materialist and post-materialist (MPM) political orientation is a new and increasingly important dimension in this respect.The findings from ten West European democracies confirm that the MPM cleavage is an important party cleavage in most of the countries examined, although the traditional structural cleavages are still most important from a causal perspective. The MPM dimension does not, however, have the largest impact in the most advanced industrial democracies, something new politics theory appears to contend. Another ideological cleavage dimension – ‘Left-Right Materialism’ – is also an important party cleavage, and appears to have most impact in the most advanced (post-industrial) West European countries.

The Dynamics of Structural Realignment

Governments render decisions on how resources and values are allocated in a society. In the United States, Congress is the institution in which most of the key allocating decisions are made. To the extent the U.S. political system is integrated, the coalitions that form around the issues debated in Congress should be reflected in the coalitions that support presidential candidates and those that support the major political parties. We formulate a spatial theory of political change in which new ideological cleavages appear in congressional behavior and presidential elections and gradually reorganize the mass party base. The theory leads us explicitly to consider the question of dealignment and to specify conditions under which the parties will lose support from voters.

Political Cleavages and Political Realignment in Norway: The New Politics Thesis Reexamined

The question of political realignment and dealignment in advanced industrial democracies has been the subject of considerable comparative analysis. The present study takes the literature regarding the ‘new politics’ thesis as the point of departure and examines the relative importance of different political cleavages. The traditional socio‐structural cleavages in the Rokkan/Lipset model for political polarization in industrial society are contrasted with an extended ideological cleavage model which includes five different dimensions. Using data from a nationwide Norwegian survey, the findings indicate that although there is a clear tendency towards a generation‐based structural de‐alignment process in accordance with ‘new politics’ literature. the thesis that the materialist/post‐materialist dimension has taken over as the dominant polarization pattern in Norway is not generally confirmed. The ‘old left‐right’ ideological cleavages ‐ which we have called Leftist/Rightist Materialism ‐ appears to be of greater importance. even in the post‐war generations.

Urban Legislative Response To Regulatory Energy Policy

Local government, when considering greater involvement in energy, must confront the trade-off between economic and political costs. The authors examine public attitudes about conservation to find the basis for public support as well as the differences of opinion between general citizens and elites and the ideological cleavages. The study illuminates the types of political inducements/enforcements urban populations are likely to support. This provides a guide to the institutional mix necessary if the US is to change its energy mix. There are also other factors not included in this study which could affect the receptivity of the public and city decision makers to energy conservation proposals. 21 references, 2 tables.

Ideology and Public Policy in Canada

This article examines the political ideology of Canadian elites on the basis of a sample survey conducted in 1977. The six hundred respondents include business executives, politicians, government bureaucrats, labour leaders, lawyers, media executives, and academics. Our purposes are, first, to make comparisons among and examine variation within these sectoral groups; second, to relate ideological cleavages to differences in support for the federal political parties; and, third, to examine the correspondence between more general ideological principles and elite opinions on a variety of specific public policy issues.

Ideological and academic polarization: the challenge to sociologists in Southern Africa

Abstract World-wide tensions between ‘functionalists’ and ‘conflict-orientated’ sociologists are reflected in the academic writings of sociologists In Southern Africa, in recent professional debate, and especially in the two major sociological organizations in Southern Africa: the Association for Sociology in Southern Africa (ASSA) and the South African Sociological Association (SASA). These contrasting sociological approaches are related to the conflicting political and ideological environments in South Africa and the corresponding philosophies of Afrikaans and English educational institutions. SASA draws its members largely from the Afrikaans universities and tends to support the White conservative establishment, while ASSA draws its members largely from the liberal, cosmopolitan English institutions. While political and Ideological cleavages in a heterogeneous society such as South Africa can probably never be overcome, a plea is made for developing the common ground in the sociological profession. Sub...

International Humanitarian Law and Internationalized Internal Armed Conflicts

Internationalized internal armed conflicts have become a common feature of the past decades. In numerous civil wars foreign armed forces have intervened in favour of one or the other party and thereby attempted to influence the outcome of the conflict. Various causes have led to this development. One of them is the increased interdependence of States, as a consequence of which every civil war will affect other States and, conversely, the attitudes of other States may have an impact on the outcome of the civil war, even without any intervention. Another cause can be found in the world's ideological cleavage which divides nations and results in the overlapping of internal and international conflicts. Among further causes we can mention the existence of military blocs and of regional groupings which have an interest in preventing the overthrow of régimes within the bloc and tend to encourage alterations in other blocs. Another factor to be taken into consideration is the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. Whereas in earlier times States waged open wars in order to increase their power, today, due to the prohibition of the use of force, they rather endeavour to achieve the same result by interfering in the internal affairs of other States. Interference in internal conflicts is often a substitute for an international war. The instability of many contemporary régimes, mainly of the Third World, further favours the internationalization of internal conflicts.

The Turkish Party System in Transition

CONTINUITY RATHER THAN CHANGE WAS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE Turkish party system during its formative years in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Now, however, party competition in Turkey appears to be approaching a new phase of development. While some political analysts have described the emerging trends in the 1970s with reference to a ‘critical realignment’ in mass electoral behaviour, others have characterized the party system as going through a period of ‘flux and transition’. Indeed, the recent course of electoral politics in Turkey displays some significant changes. First, with the termination of the Justice Party's UP) dominant position in party competition, there has been a transition from a predominant party system to one of moderate pluralism in which the likelihood of coalition government has significantly increased. Secondly, the trend toward greater fragmentation in the party system which partially accounted for the JP's loss of dominance in 1973, appears to have been reversed in the 1977 parliamentary election as the two major parties made substantial gains at the expense of the minor parties. Thirdly, these changes have been accompanied by the increase of ideological polarization in the party system and the intensification of ideological cleavages among the party elites.