Class, Prospects and the Life-cycle: Explaining the Association between Class Position and Political Preferences (original) (raw)
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Class mobility and political preferences: individual and contextual effects
American Journal of Sociology, 1995
The authors test several hypotheses about the impact of intergenerational class mobility on political party preferences. Tests using cross-national data sets representing Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States over the period 1964-90 suggest a process of acculturation to the class of destination. The authors hypothesized that a class with a high degree of demographic identity influences newcomers more than a class with low demographic identity does and that, the more left-wing inflow there is into a class, the more likely the immobile members are to have left-wing political preferences. The data did not confirm these hypotheses. A macro analysis does, however, show that the level of class voting is weakened by a compositional mobility effect.
Class Inequalities in Political Participation and the ‘Death of Class’ Debate.
The aim of this article is to offer an empirical contribution to the debate on the political significance of class, and especially the relationship between class position and political participation. The ‘death of class’ debate has primarily addressed only one aspect of politics – voting. The perspective offered here widens the scope of analysis to include the main forms of political action available to citizens in modern democracies. In this article, a comparative cross-national approach is adopted, using data on 20 European countries that are included in the first wave of the European Social Survey. Using log-linear models as a descriptive device, the article identifies a basic pattern of association between class and participation, points out the main national deviations from that pattern and makes a comparative assessment of the relative magnitude of overall levels of class inequalities in participation in different forms of political activity. The results bear out the continuing relevance of class as a source of differentiation of political behaviour and tend to confirm previous research regarding the validity of empirical generalizations on class patterns of political participation.
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Class voting is supposedly in severe decline in advanced industrial democracies. However, this conventional wisdom derives from research using problematic methods and measures and an overly simple model of political change. This chapter overviews past and current comparative research into changes in and explanations of class-based political behavior and argues for the continued significance of class voting and, by extension, class politics in contemporary democracies. I particularly emphasize the importance of using more appropriate methods and the application and testing of theories that integrate developments in this area with those in studies of voting behavior more generally. This translates into a need for the systematic testing of bottom-up/top-down interactions in the relations between social structure and political preferences and the precise specification and measurement of explanatory mechanisms that can account for the association between class position and voting.
European Journal of Political Research, 1995
Abstract. This study examines the impact of class self-identification and class position on political attitudes in Great Britain, West Germany, Australia and the United States. The results show a basic similarity in the class structure of these four western nations, differences in patterns of class identification, and significant effects of class structure and class identification on political attitudes. Despite recent projections of its demise, for these four countries at least, class identification and class position are an important, albeit secondary, factor in explaining political attitudes. Of these class measures, class self-identification is the more salient in predicting political attitudes.
The Inequality of Politics: Social Class Rank and Political Participation
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
Perceived lower rank in the social class hierarchy reflects an individual's relative lack of perceived social and economic worth in society. In the current study we tested the predictions that lower perceptions of social class rank elicit both reduced political participation and lower political self-efficacy. Study 1 found that students with lower perceived social class were less likely to seek information about student government. Study 2 found that perceptions of political self-efficacy accounted for the relationship between perceived social class rank and political participation. Study 3 established causal associations between perceived social class and political participation-a momentary manipulation of elevated perceived social class increased political efficacy and intentions to participate in politics. In Study 4, affirming the self reduced social class disparities in both perceived political participation and efficacy. Throughout the studies, perceptions of social class were consistently related to political participation, and these associations occurred after accounting for political ideology and objective indicators of social class. Discussion focused on the understudied psychological barriers that perpetuate voter inequality in society.