Theorizing class and far right politics through a cultural materialist framework: towards a new research agenda (original) (raw)
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The Working Class and Support for the Radical Right. A Critical Perspective
Les Cahiers de l'IEP, 2021
Scholarship in political science usually attributes a pivotal, or even exclusive, role to the working class in the progress of the radical right in Europe in recent years. This paper discusses the link between working class and radical right bearing on the case of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) with a focus on its electorate and activists’ support. Using post-electoral survey data and in-depth interviews with activists, it develops two critical arguments. The first is that support for the radical right is interclassist and based on various types of social and political rationales. The second argument is that a significant proportion of the working class does not support the SVP. Consequently class position is not the key determinant of support for the radical right. The paper argues that it is necessary to take into account a plurality of factors liable to bear on political behaviour. These factors can be endogenous (e.g. the political socialization and social trajectories of the actors) or exogenous (such as mobilizing sociability networks, political offer, and context). Studies on the radical right would gain by incorporating these various determinants of political behaviour. This requires going beyond monocausal explanations of support for the radical right, and allows to put into perspective explanations for support of the SVP in terms of frustration and economic deprivation often present in scholarship
The class basis of the cleavage between the New Left and the radical right
This chapter argues that the electoral competition between the New Left and the Radical Right is best understood as a cultural divide anchored in different class constituencies. Based on individual-level data from the European Social Survey, we analyze the links between voters’ class position, their economic and cultural preferences and their party choice for four small and affluent European countries. We find a striking similarity in the class pattern across countries. Everywhere, the New Left attracts disproportionate support from socio-cultural professionals and presents a clear-cut middle-class profile, whereas the Radical Right is most successful among production and service workers and receives least support from professionals. In general, the Radical Right depends on the votes of lower-educated men and older citizens and has turned into a new type of working-class party. However, its success within the working-class is not due to economic, but to cultural issues. The voters of the Radical Right collide with those of the New Left over a cultural conflict of identity and community – and not over questions of redistribution. A full-grown cleavage has thus emerged in the four countries under study, separating a libertarian-universalistic pole from an authoritarian-communitarian pole and going along with a process of class realignment.
Class in the Crisis of Capitalism: Inequality, Class and Left wing politics in the US and UK
2019
In the wake of US debt crisis a wave of protest swept through the advanced Capitalist countries and around the world bringing down governments in Tunisia, Egypt and challenging neoliberal centrist parties throughout the developed world. This ‘newest’ wave of social protests is distinct in its predominantly young social base, its leaderless organization structure and its media savvy tactics. Guided by the highly anti-capitalistic narrative these protests have developed, leading scholars in the field of social movements have begun to re-analyse the impact of economic and cultural structures and the role of class on the development of this newest wave of social movements. The present analysis builds on this research trend first theoretically by adding the insights of Marxist scholars on the nature of capitalism and the specifics of both normative, cultural and structural sources of grief and frames of action within neoliberal labour relations to an analysis of relationally based class location. The analysis focuses on the changing base for social movements within the west. Identifying a particular ‘latent’ class of young educated precariat the analysis uses models developed within the social movement literature to conduct an historical analysis to reveal the transformational process of class formation within these movements as they react to changing political and cultural events. This study then traces the development of this class consciousness through to the later more active forms of class consciousness seen in the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns. Rather than fading from view, this class-in-the-making is seen to evolve a more focused political consciousness during this period. Finally, a comparative analysis in done looking at the movement and party-politics of this precariat class in the wake of the crises brought on by the election of Donald Trump and the EU referendum.
The paper is intended to serve five purposes. First, a discussion of the literature will provide an overview of the literature on class and class voting. Second, the paper will discuss and bring together the Marxist and Weberian political theory traditions on how to define and operationalize class. Third, it will deliver accurate statistics on the class composition of the electorate of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe based on current data. Fourth, it will provide evidence on whether certain classes are particularly vulnerable to right-wing populism. Fifth, it will offer numbers of the relative share of individuals of different classes who vote for the populist right.
Class Politics and Cultural Politics
Pragmatism Today, 2019
After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, many commentators latched on to the accusations Rorty levels at the American Left in Achieving Our Country. Rorty foresaw, they claimed, that the Left's preoccupation with cultural politics and neglect of class politics would lead to the election of a "strongman" who would take advantage of and exploit a rise in populist sentiment. In this paper, I generally agree with these readings of Rorty; he does think that the American Left has made the mistake of putting class on the political backburner. However, I suggest that this position follows from his view that economic security is vital for solidarity. Because economic security is under increasing threat in contemporary America, so too is solidarity. If greater solidarity is a goal of liberal democracy, then class politics, aimed at ending selfishness, ought to be as much a priority for the American Left as is cultural politics, aimed at ending sadism.
Classificatory struggles: class, culture and inequality in neoliberal times
The Sociological Review, 2015
The problem that the concept of ‘class’ describes is inequality. The transition from industrial to financial capitalism (neoliberalism) in Europe has effected ‘deepening inequalities of income, health and life chances within and between countries, on a scale not seen since before the second world War’ (Hall et al., 2014: 9). In this context, class is an essential point of orientation for sociology if it is to grasp the problem of inequality today. Tracing a route through Pierre Bourdieu's relational understanding of class, Beverley Skeggs' understanding of class as struggles (over value), and Wendy Brown's argument that neoliberalism is characterized by the culturalization of political struggles, this article animates forms of class-analysis, with which we might better apprehend the forms of class exploitation that distinguish post-industrial societies. Taking a cue from Jacques Rancière, the central argument is that the sociology of class should be grounded not in the a...
In a growing number of countries, the two dominant political poles of the 20th century, the parties of the Left and the Centre-Right, are challenged by a third pole made up by the Radical Right. Between 2000 and 2015, the Radical Right has obtained more than 12 per cent of the vote in over ten Western European countries and in over twenty national elections. We argue that the three poles compete with each other for the allegiance of different social classes. Our analysis shows the micro-foundations of class voting in nine West European countries where the political space was tripolar for part – or all – of the period between 2000 and 2015. Based on the European Social Survey 2002-2014, we find that socio-cultural professionals still form the party preserve of the Left, and large employers and managers constitute the party preserve of the Centre-Right. However, the Radical Right competes with the Centre-Right for the votes of small business owners, and it challenges the Left over its traditional working-class stronghold. These two contested strongholds attest to the coexistence of old and new patterns of class voting. The analysis of voters’ attitudes shows that old patterns are structured by the economic axis of conflict: production workers’ support for the Left and small business owners’ endorsement of the Centre-Right. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the Radical Right and structured by the cultural axis of conflict: the support for the Radical Right by production workers and small business owners.