Social structure and party choice in western Europe : a comparative longitudinal study / Oddbjørn Knutsen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knutsen, Oddbjørn, 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political parties--Europe.

Political parties.

Europe.

Political sociology.

Comparative government.

Physical Description:

xiii, 293 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Summary:

This study is a comparative analysis of the relationship between social structure and party choice in eight West European countries. Oddbjorn Knutsen analyses the comparative strength of social structural variables, and how these have changed from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Other factors that are considered include for which parties the structural variables have the largest impact within the various party systems and across national contexts. The parties are grouped in such a way that cross-national comparisons can be conducted to discover for which parties the most significant change in support is found from various given social groups.

Contents:

1 Party Choice and Social Structure: Theory, the Party Choice Variable and Statistical Measures 1

1.1 Introduction: the study of the relationship between party choice and social structure 1

1.2 Review of comparative literature on social structure and party choice 4

1.3 Grouping of parties in party families 14

1.4 The party choice variable 19

1.5 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 31

1.6 Statistical measures and the analysis of changes over time 34

1.7 The plan for the book and the organisation of the empirical analyses 41

2 Religious Denomination 43

2.1 Introduction: the two faces of the religious cleavage 43

2.2 Religious denominations 46

2.3 Religious denomination and party choice 53

2.4 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 76

3 Church Religiosity and Church Attendance 86

3.1 Introduction: church religiosity in a comparative perspective 86

3.2 Church religiosity and party choice 97

3.3 Party choice and church attendance within the different religious denominations in religiously mixed countries 115

3.4 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 123

4 Urban-Rural Residence 132

4.1 Introduction: the urban-rural cleavage, or urban-rural contrasts 132

4.2 Operationalisation of urban-rural residence 134

4.3 Urban-rural residence and party choice 136

4.4 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 151

5 Education 159

5.2 The education variable in the surveys and changes in education levels in a comparative perspective 163

5.3 Education and party choice 167

5.4 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 187

6 Gender 198

6.2 Gender and party choice 201

6.3 Socialist/non-socialist party choice 217

7 Conclusion: the Decline, Convergence and Transformation of Cleavage Politics 224

7.2 Social cleavages and nominal-level party choice 225

7.3 Overlap and crosscut for the various cleavages 240

7.4 Left-right division of parties 243.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 278-282) and index.

ISBN:

1403933200

OCLC:

55149496