The Social Bases of American Electoral Politics -
Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks: Social Cleavages and Political Change: Voter Alignments and US Party Coalitions, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, 342 pp., £35.00.
This work is touted as the only book-length examination of
the sociological model of vote choice in American politics
since David Knoke's The Social Bases of Political Parties
(1976), and it is, indeed, a well-researched examination of the
role that race, class, religion, and gender play in our under-
standing of voter alignments in the United States. At the
same time, I have concerns about some of the methodological
decisions made by the authors and the effect of these
choices on their conclusions.
Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks, Social Cleavages and Political Change. Voter Alignments and U.S. Part\ Coalitions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 342 + xi s.. £35.00.