The End of Class Politics? Class Voting in Comparative Context

by Evans, Geoffrey

• ISBN13: 9780198280958
• ISBN10: 0198280955
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The last few decades has seen a prolonged debate over the nature and importance of social class as a basis for ideology, class voting and class politics. The prevailing assumption is that, in western societies, class inequalities are no longer important in determining political behaviour. InThe End of Class Politics? leading scholars from the US, UK and Europe argue that the evidence on which the assumptions about the decline importance of class is based is unfounded. Instead, the book argues that the class basis of political competition has to some degree evolved, but not declined.Furthermore, the social basis of political competition and sweeping claims about the new politics of postindustrial society need to be re-examined.

Author Biography

Dr Geoffrey Evans is Faculty Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford

Table of Contents

List of Tables	ix
List of Figures	xii
List of Abbreviations	xiv
List of Contributors	xvi
Class Voting: From Premature Obituary to Reasoned Appraisal	1	(22)
Geoffrey Evans
PART I: THE BROAD COMPARATIVE PICTURE
Traditional Class Voting in Twenty Postwar Societies	23	(36)
Paul Nieuwbeerta
Nan Dirk De Graaf
PART II: CASE STUDIES OF WESTERN DEMOCRACIES
Modelling the Pattern of Class Voting in British Elections, 1964-1992	59	(24)
John H. Goldthorpe
Classes, Unions, and the Realignment of US Presidential Voting, 1952-1992	83	(14)
Michael Hout
Jeff Manza
Clem Brooks
The Secret Life of Class Voting: Britain, France, and the United States since the 1930s	97	(40)
David L. Weakliem
Anthony F. Heath
Class Cleavages in Party Preferences in Germany---Old and New	137	(44)
Walter Muller
Changes in Class Voting in Norway, 1957-1989	181	(22)
Kristen Ringdal
Kjell Hines
The Class Politics of Swedish Welfare Policies	203	(28)
Stefan Svallfors
PART III: THE NEW CLASS POLITICS OF POST-COMMUNISM
The Politics of Interests and Class Realignment in the Czech Republic, 1992-1996	231	(23)
Petr Mateju
Blanka Rehakova
Geoffrey Evans
The Emergence of Class Politics and Class Voting in Post-communist Russia	254	(27)
Geoffrey Evans
Stephen Whitefield
PART IV: REAPPRAISAL, COMMENTARY, AND CONCLUSIONS
Resolving Disputes about Class Voting in Britain and the United States: Definitions, Models, and Data	281	(27)
David L. Weakliem
Anthony F. Heath
Critical Commentary: Four Perspectives on The End of Class Politics?	308	(15)
Peter Mair
Seymour Martin Lipset
Michael Hout
John H. Goldthorpe
Class and Vote: Disrupting the Orthodoxy	323	(12)
Geoffrey Evans
References	335	(20)
Index	355