Electoral Competition in Europe's New Tripolar Political Space : Class Voting for the Left, Centre-Right and Radical Right

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Serval ID
serval:BIB_F10DCAF5692B
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Electoral Competition in Europe's New Tripolar Political Space : Class Voting for the Left, Centre-Right and Radical Right
Journal
European Journal of Political Research
Author(s)
Oesch Daniel, Rennwald Line
ISSN
0304-4130
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Number
57
Pages
783–807
Language
english
Abstract
The rise of the radical right fundamentally changes the face of electoral competition in Western Europe.Bipolar competition is becoming tripolar, as the two dominant party poles of the twentieth century – the left and the centre-right – are challenged by a third pole of the radical right. Between 2000 and 2015, the radical right has secured more than 12 per cent of the vote in over tenWestern European countries. This article shows how electoral competition between the three party poles plays out at the micro level of social classes. It presents a model of class voting that distinguishes between classes that are a party’s preserve, classes that are contested strongholds of two parties and classes over which there is an open competition. Using seven rounds of the European Social Survey, it shows that sociocultural professionals form the party
preserve of the left, and large employers and managers the 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 working-class stronghold.These two contested strongholds attest to the co-existence of old and new patterns of class voting. Old patterns are structured by an economic conflict: Production workers vote for the left and small business owners for the centre-right based on their economic attitudes. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the radical right and structured by a cultural conflict.
Keywords
cleavage, radical right, social class, voting, working class
Create date
11/01/2018 15:52
Last modification date
29/08/2019 14:11
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