Religious vs. Linguistic vs. Class Voting: The “Crucial Experiment” of Comparing Belgium, Canada, South Africa, and Switzerland

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 442-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Lijphart
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Electoral Behavior ◽  
Crucial Experiment ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Class Voting ◽  
Religious Factor

For the purpose of determining the relative influence of the three potentially most important social and demographic factors on party choice–social class, religion, and language–a comparison of Belgium, Canada, South Africa, and Switzerland provides a “crucial experiment,” because these three variables are simultaneously present in all four countries. Building on the major earlier research achievements in comparative electoral behavior, this four-country multivariate analysis compares the indices of voting and the party choice “trees” on the basis of national sample surveys conducted in the 1970s. From this crucial contest among the three determinants of party choice, religion emerges as the victor, language as a strong runner-up, and class as a distant third. The surprising strength of the religious factor can be explained in terms of the “freezing” of past conflict dimensions in the party system and the presence of alternative, regional-federal, structures for the expression of linguistic interests.

Perceived Party Choice and Class Voting

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald D. Lambert ◽  
James E. Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
National Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Conceptual Domain ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Class Voting ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Canadian Politics ◽  
Party Differences

AbstractThis article presents tests of effects of social class background on voters' perceptions of most and least favoured federal parties, perceived party differences and subjective class voting. The data were taken from the 1984 Canadian National Election Study. The results show that subjective class voting extended to voters' beliefs about least liked parties. And the greater the perceived differences between voters' preferred parties and their second and third choice parties, the greater the level of class voting. An index which combined respondents' perceptions of the class orientations of most and least liked parties increased the estimate of the level of subjective class voting that takes place. The results suggest that this index provides an improved way of assessing subjective class voting. This index is a useful improvement upon previous measures because it incorporates information on the extent to which voters see Canadian politics as presenting class-based alternatives. This is the conceptual domain of the dependent variable in the literature on subjective class voting, but perceived class-based alternatives are seldom measured directly.

scholarly journals Intimate Connections: Political Interests and Group Activity in State and Local Parties

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 257-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise L. Baer ◽  
Julie A. Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Group Consciousness ◽  
Crucial Experiment ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Using Data ◽  
New Research

Using data from the 1988 Party Elite Study, this paper tests two different models of how interests and parties are related among a national sample of state and local party leaders and activists. Two models of interest intermediation are compared: the pluralist model stressing consensus and bipartisanship, and the party government model stressing conflict and partisanship. New research is reviewed suggesting that political interests have become nationalized and work within the parties. Using Stinchcombe’s "crucial experiment," opposing assumptions of the two models are compared. While we do not test whether interests and parties are equally strong, we do find that strong parties and strong interests share a complementary, even intimate relationship. Strong support is found for the pervasiveness of interests among party elites, the presence of distinct party-linked ideological differences between group members and non-members, linkage between interest membership and organized party factions, group structuring of political information and communication, and a group consciousness. Based on these findings, we find support for the advent of true factions in the contemporary party system, and the conflict model of partisan intermediation in the post-reform party system is confirmed. The fact that interests are so strongly intertwined with the state and local parties provides disconfirmation of the pervasive myth that strong interests lead to decline at the grassroots.

Ethnicity and Voting Patterns in South Africa

1979 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Lever
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Categorical Data ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Log Linear ◽  
Published Research

There is some controversy concerning the role of ethnicity in South African electoral behaviour. Since the society is segmented on ethnic lines it is to be expected that ethnicity would play a crucial role in affecting political choices. Some writers have gone so far as to suggest that ethnicity is the only significant factor affecting voting preferences. The controversy arose at a time when Goodman's method of log-linear analysis for hierarchical models had not yet been developed. This method provides the most powerful tool available for the multivariate analysis of categorical data. A re-analysis of previously published research using Goodman's method shows that ethnicity is not the only significant factor having a bearing on voting preferences. The first four-way table of voting preferences in South Africa is presented. The order of importance of the variables affecting party choice is: (1) ethnicity (2) socio-economic status (3) age of the voter. The recursive model suggested by the analysis explains approximately 98 per cent of the data.

Opposition Growth in Dominant Party Systems: Coalitions in South Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Langfield
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Party System ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Western Cape Province ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Party Strategies ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Dominant Parties

What is responsible for the decline of democratically dominant parties and the corresponding growth of competitive party systems? This article argues that, despite a ruling party's dominance, opposition forces can gain by winning important subnational offices and then creating a governance record that they can use to win new supporters. It focuses on South Africa as a paradigmatic dominant party system, tracing the increased competitiveness of elections in Cape Town and the surrounding Western Cape province between 1999 and 2010. These events show how party strategies may evolve, reflecting how party elites can learn from forming coalitions.

Two Models of Class Voting

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Weakliem
Keyword(s):  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Class Voting

Until the late 1960s, most informed observers agreed with Pulzer's well-known claim that ‘class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail’. More recently, however, most analysts have come to believe that there has been a decline in the association between class and party choice, a development that is generally referred to as ‘class dealignment’. Nevertheless, several researchers have challenged this new consensus and argued that there has been little or no trend in the association between class and party.

Euthanasia: A National Survey of Attitudes toward Voluntary Termination of Life

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Jorgenson ◽  
Ron C. Neubecker
Keyword(s):  
Discriminant Analysis ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Data Base ◽  
National Survey ◽  
National Sample ◽  
General Survey ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
The Social ◽  
Attitudes Toward Suicide ◽  
Voluntary Termination

This study focused on the attitudes of a national sample of adults related to the voluntary termination of life. The data-base for this research were 1525 adults surveyed in the 1977 NORC General Survey. Two items in the survey delineated the pro-euthanasia and the anti-euthanasia groups. Several independent variables including structural, behavioral, and attitudinal variables were correlated with euthanasia attitudes. Several statistically significant correlations were found. These findings plus the results of a discriminant analysis showed that those persons with favorable attitudes toward suicide were also favorable toward euthanasia. Religiosity and other religious indicators were negatively associated with pro-euthanasia attitudes. Whites and males were more favorable toward euthanasia than Blacks and females. Finally, the social class variables were positively associated with pro-euthanasia attitudes.

The Patterns of Party Polarization in East Asia

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton ◽  
Aiji Tanaka
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Party System ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Polarization ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
The Comparative Study

The alignment of parties within a party system shapes the nature of electoral competition, the process of representation, and potentially the legitimacy of the system. This article describes the distribution of parties and the levels of party polarization in the party systems of East Asian democracies. We examine the public's perceptions of party positions on a left-right scale to map the pattern of party competition. The evidence is based on two waves of surveys from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. We describe considerable variation in the polarization of Asian party systems, which has direct implications for the clarity of party choice and the behavior of voters. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings.

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