Social Structure and Voting Choice

Author(s):  
Oddbjørn Knutsen

The linkage between voters and political parties is to some degree based on stable social cleavages. Such cleavages express important and lasting societal divisions, allow parties and voters to establish long-term ties, and provide incumbents with clear representative and policy-making tasks against which they can be evaluated. Most research on cleavages has been based on the classic cleavages that were outlined in the Lipset-Rokkan model for social cleavages in industrial societies. These are: (1) the center–periphery cleavage, which is anchored in geographical regions and related to different ethnic and linguistic groups as well as religious minorities; (2) the religious conflict between the Church and the State, which pitted the secular state against the historical privileges of the churches; this cleavage has more recently polarized the religious section against the secular section of the population; (3) the class conflict in the labor market, which involved owners and employers versus tenants, laborers, and workers; and (4) the conflict in the commodity market between buyers and sellers of agricultural products, or more generally, between the urban and the rural population. Other social cleavages, such as gender, educational differences, and new divisions within the large new middle class, have been focused upon during the last decades. The new divisions within the new middle class are “horizontal” conflicts and can be conceptualized as a basic conflict between public and private employees, and as an alternative way of conceptualization, between those who work within technical, organizational, or interpersonal service environments. Some of the cleavages have declined in importance over time, while others have increased. Some cleavages have changed character such as the class cleavage where part of the new middle class has voted for the New Left and part of the working class has voted for the New Right in the last decades. Changes in the impact and character of different cleavages have resulted in strategic reconsideration of important policies and changing location of the parties in the political space.

Author(s):  
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite

This chapter examines how ideas about class, community, and individualism figured in the modernization of the Labour Party in the 1980s and 1990s. It examines the development, under Kinnock and Blair, of a new imagined constituency for Labour—a ‘new working class’ or, as Blair put it, ‘new middle class’. The sources of this vision lay partly in academic theorizing, but also in the backgrounds of key modernizers, and in new polling and focus group techniques for researching social attitudes. Modernizers understood the new majoritarian constituency in society as united by aspirations, and reoriented socialism to emphasize the use of community action—through the state—to secure a wide distribution of opportunity and security throughout society, in order to enable individuals to achieve those aspirations. The chapter concludes by examining the impact of these beliefs on policy relating to poverty, inequality, trade unionism, and community.


Res Publica ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94
Author(s):  
Staf Hellemans ◽  
Herbert Kitschelt

A survey conducted in 1985 at the party conferences of the Belgian ecology parties Agalev and Ecolo, allows to brush an empirically based picture of the militants and the internal functioning of these parties. The "new middle class" background of the militants, the stratarchic order in the cadre party, the manifest links with the socalled "new social movements" and the specific brand of a new left-libertarian ideology all point to the new and different character of these parties, in comparison tothe established Belgian parties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (7A) ◽  
pp. 1069-1076
Author(s):  
Layth T. Ali ◽  
Raid S. Abid Ali ◽  
Zeyad S. M. Khaled

Cost overrun in construction projects is a common phenomenon in Iraq. This might occur due to diversity of factors. This study aims to identify the factors influencing construction projects cost that are potentially controllable by main contractors. A field study through a questionnaire survey was directed to a sample of related Iraqi professional engineers from general contracting companies at both public and private sectors. Their opinions on the impact and frequency of each factor were investigated. The questionnaire offered (59) factors classified in (8) categories namely; legislations, financial and economic, design, contractual, site management, material, labor and equipment. The factors were ranked according to the highest Relative Importance Index (RII). The study revealed (10) major factors that are potentially controllable by main contractors namely; labor productivity, sub-contractors and suppliers performance, equipment productivity, site organization and distribution of equipment, experience and training of project managers, scheduling and control techniques, planning for materials supply, planning for equipment supply, materials delivery and planning for skilled labor recruitment. Recommendations to aid contractors and owners in early identification of these factors are also included in this study.


Author(s):  
Sunil Bhatia

This chapter analyzes how call center workers, who are mostly middle- and working-class youth, create narratives that are described as expressing modern forms of “individualized Indianness.” The chapter demonstrates how call center workers produce narratives of individualized Indianness by engaging in practices of mimicry, accent training, and consumption; by going to public spaces such as bars and pubs; and by having romantic relationships that are largely hidden from their families. The narratives examined in this chapter are created out of an asymmetrical context of power as young Indians work as “subjects” of a global economy who primarily serve “First World” customers. The interviews with Indian youth reflect how tradition and modernity, mimicry and authenticity, collude with each other to dialogically create new middle-class subjectivities.


Author(s):  
Frode Eika Sandnes

AbstractPurpose: Some universal accessibility practitioners have voiced that they experience a mismatch in the research focus and the need for knowledge within specialized problem domains. This study thus set out to identify the balance of research into the main areas of accessibility, the impact of this research, and how the research profile varies over time and across geographical regions. Method: All UAIS papers indexed in Scopus were analysed using bibliometric methods. The WCAG taxonomy of accessibility was used for the analysis, namely perceivable, operable, and understandable. Results: The results confirm the expectation that research into visual impairment has received more attention than papers addressing operable and understandable. Although papers focussing on understandable made up the smallest group, papers in this group attracted more citations. Funded research attracted fewer citations than research without funding. The breakdown of research efforts appears consistent over time and across different geographical regions. Researchers in Europe and North America have been active throughout the last two decades, while Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Middle East became active in during the last five years. There is also seemingly a growing trend of out-of-scope papers. Conclusions: Based on the findings, several recommendations are proposed to the UAIS editorial board.


Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
H. Howell Williams

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation featured frequent references to her role as a mother. This article situates these references within the trajectory of American political development to demonstrate how motherhood operates as a mechanism for enforcing a white-centered racial order. Through a close analysis of both the history of politicized motherhood as well as Barrett’s nomination and confirmation hearings, I make a series of claims about motherhood and contemporary conservatism. First, conservatives stress the virtuousness of motherhood through a division between public and private spheres that valorizes the middle-class white mother. Second, conservatives emphasize certain mothering practices associated with the middle-class white family. Third, conservatives leverage an epistemological claim about the universality of mothering experiences to universalize white motherhood. Finally, this universalism obscures how motherhood operates as a site in which power distinguishes between good and bad mothers and allocates resources accordingly. By attending to what I call the “republican motherhood script” operating in contemporary conservatism, I argue that motherhood is an ideological apparatus for enforcing a racial order premised on white protectionism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka Chun Chong ◽  
Hong Fung ◽  
Carrie Ho Kwan Yam ◽  
Patsy Yuen Kwan Chau ◽  
Tsz Yu Chow ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The elderly healthcare voucher (EHCV) scheme is expected to lead to an increase in the number of elderly people selecting private primary healthcare services and reduce reliance on the public sector in Hong Kong. However, studies thus far have reported that this scheme has not received satisfactory responses. In this study, we examined changes in the ratio of visits between public and private doctors in primary care (to measure reliance on the public sector) for different strategic scenarios in the EHCV scheme. Methods Based on comments from an expert panel, a system dynamics model was formulated to simulate the impact of various enhanced strategies in the scheme: increasing voucher amounts, lowering the age eligibility, and designating vouchers for chronic conditions follow-up. Data and statistics for the model calibration were collected from various sources. Results The simulation results show that the current EHCV scheme is unable to reduce the utilization of public healthcare services, as well as the ratio of visits between public and private primary care among the local aging population. When comparing three different tested scenarios, even if the increase in the annual voucher amount could be maintained at the current pace or the age eligibility can be lowered to include those aged 60 years, the impact on shifts from public-to-private utilization were insignificant. The public-to-private ratio could only be marginally reduced from 0.74 to 0.64 in the first several years. Nevertheless, introducing a chronic disease-oriented voucher could result in a significant drop of 0.50 in the public-to-private ratio during the early implementation phase. However, the effect could not be maintained for an extended period. Conclusions Our findings will assist officials in improving the design of the EHCV scheme, within the wider context of promoting primary care among the elderly. We suggest that an additional chronic disease-oriented voucher can serve as an alternative strategy. The scheme must be redesigned to address more specific objectives or provide a separate voucher that promotes under-utilized healthcare services (e.g., preventive care), instead of services designed for unspecified reasons, which may lead to concerns regarding exploitation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Pankaj Sinha ◽  
Naina Grover

This study analyses the impact of competition on liquidity creation by banks and investigates the dynamics between diversification, liquidity creation and competition for banks operating in India during the period from 2005 to 2018. Using the broad and narrow measures of liquidity creation, an inverse relationship is determined between liquidity creation and competition. The study also indicates a trade-off between pro-competitive policies to improve consumer welfare and the liquidity-destroying effects of competition, and it highlights how diversification affects liquidity creation. Highly diversified banks in India create less liquidity compared with less-diversified banks, both public and private. The liquidity-destroying effects of competition is intensified among highly diversified private banks, which suggest that diversification has not moderated the adverse impact of competition. JEL Codes: G01, G18, G21, G28


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