Electoral Behavior

The Sociological Approach Based on Social Cleavages

Sociological research on voting behavior has been developed since the 1950s as a result of the increasing presence of major opinion poll surveys based on large samples of voters. These surveys allowed a great deal of individual data to be gathered and submitted to complex quantitative processing. In many countries, strong statistical relationships appeared between the social characteristics of individuals and the way they voted. Among the main social variables used and whose effect has been measured, class and religious belonging were initially the most frequently analyzed, and they also appeared to be the factors that had the most determining effect.

Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan's theory of cleavages looked at the history of European societies to identify the main stable social cleavages at the roots of political and partisan cleavages. They exerted a huge influence on research into voting behavior by showing the profound and lasting nature of the major social determinants of voting. Their research has provided solid results on this [Page 739]question. The study of class voting was thus well developed, as was the study of the relationship between religious belonging and voting behavior. Thus, for example, while class constituted the most important electoral cleavage in Great Britain, religion seemed to be the variable with the greatest impact in both Germany and France, though class also played a role but to a lesser extent.

More recently, this approach has been criticized in several ways. It was observed that the ability of these two variables to explain voting behavior was becoming weaker in accordance with a long-term trend. Thus, the permanence of class voting, particularly in Great Britain, but also more broadly speaking in Europe, became debatable as a result of analyses that showed an underlying decrease of the left-wing working-class vote and the right-wing middle-class vote. Many explanations for the decline of class voting have been suggested. Some of these point to changes in social structures in Western societies and to both the decrease and fragmentation of the working class. Others stress the individualization of these societies and the increasing autonomy of individuals in relation to the groups they belong to. This hypothesis is also suggested for the religious factor, as European societies have become increasingly secular.

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