Is there still a "class voting" in European countries?

Résumé du document

Electoral sociology was born in the US after World War II. The survey of Paul Lazarsfeld and his team from the University of Columbia showed that the presidential campaign had little influence on voting. Political choices are not linked to perceptions of issues since few people change their voting intentions between successive waves of the panel study, few respondents mention issues as the cause for changing their voting intention, few people can identify candidate positions even on debated issues. Voters choose their candidate before the campaign and keep their initial choice. This choice is linked to their social and professional background. Three variables are important: social ad economic status, religion and place of residence. Social groups have a big impact. 77% of the 1940 respondents said that their parents and grandparents vote for the same party as they do. Many people refer to personal influence as the reason for changing their voting intention. The conclusion of the survey is, 'a person thinks politically as he is socially. Social characteristics determine political preference'.

Extraits

[...] Labour contracts characteristically are short-term, involve specific payment for effort on a time basis, have close supervision to ensure productivity. Goldthorpe class schema The class cleavage is the most important cleavage to emerge from the industrial revolution: owners of capital with their established allies elites are opposed to workers, a newly constituted and expanding group, represented by the development of trade unions and trade union movements. II. Hypotheses What could be the answer to the question Is there still a class voting in European countries ? [...]

[...] The self-employed and those working in the private sector prefer the right since they are attached to the free business venture, whereas the others prefer the left since they evolve in a strong unionization tradition and defend the French public services. There are thus new socio-professional cleavages. This is a kind of realignment. Class voting has been transformed. Britain For Heath, Jowell and Curtice (1985 and 1992), the decline in class voting is a function of the party strategy rather than the social changes. They speak of trendless fluctuations Class voting decreases between 1964 and 1979 and increases then. For them, the context of one election is important. [...]

[...] The stake is vital since the far right, the populist and radical parties, try to win over the working class. The book edited by Geoffrey Evans The end of Class Politics ? shows how this question is disputed and its answer not fixed and consensual. However, we will try to answer to the question : Is there still a class voting per se in European countries ? We are going to explain our main hypothesis (class voting is in decline -dealignment. [...]

[...] More than the income, the degree or the hierarchal position, it is the class, the relationships to labor and capital, that influences the most the political choices in Europe, whatever the sex or the age of voters. Nevertheless, class' influence on voting is less heavy than before and different. Indeed, nowadays, it is less the cleavage between workman and non-workman that matters, except for Sweden and Spain, than the fact to be self- employed or not, and to work in the private sector or in the public one. The self-employed own the means of production, the other do not. [...]

[...] This thus illustrates the decline of class voting. The phenomenon is clear between 1988 and 1995 (see the table below). This evolution can be explained by the fact that economic stakes are less important than before. The debate concerns more the values, such as immigration, security, sexuality . Concerning values, the level of education has a great impact. Educated people are more liberal than non-educated people. The socialist Party electorate has evolved. This is a phenomenon of embourgeoisement. In 2002, more executives than working men voted in favor of Socialists. [...]