The Transformation of the Socio-Economic Left – Right Cleavage. Voting behaviour and
changing attitudes towards economy and social policies (1990-2015)
Prof. Marc Swyngedouw (ISPO-KU Leuven)
Prof. Bart Meuleman
Dr. Koen Abts
Prof. Marc Jacquemain (ULg – CLEO)
Institute for Social and Political Opinion Research (ISPO) – Center for Sociological Research (CeSO)
Financed: Research Council KU Leuven 0T/13/030
Nationale Loterij / Loterie Nationale
ABVV / FGTB
ACLVB / CGSLB
Belspo
Logo : KU Leuven / NL
The aim of this project is to investigate whether and how contemporary societal processes induced by
globalization are transforming Western European political spaces. Concretely, we focus on the rearticulation of the socio-economic left-right cleavage, and its consequences for attitude patterns and
voting behaviour in European electorates.
Theoretical background: Liquid modernity - Contemporary society is characterized by a de-closure
and de-structuring of the social contract, the cultural compromise and the political cleavages of
organized modernity (Wagner, 1994; Wimmer, 2002; Bartolini, 2005; Ferrera, 2005; Abts, 2012).
During the apex of bounded structuring, the tri-partite of trade unions, employers and government
agreed on a social pact to pursue economic growth and generalized welfare (Castel, 2003). The
national growth state was a class compromise balancing the individualism and inequality of market
capitalism with the universalism and collective interests of emancipatory democracy (Boix, 2003), and
at the same time created strong political bonds between lower classes and mass parties representing
their interests and grievances (Ferrera, 2005).
However, since the end of the 1970s all West European welfare states are confronted with
massive challenges de-bounding and de-structuring the social-economic, cultural and political
equilibriums of organized modernity. (1) The enduring crisis of organized capitalism and the resulting
financial constraints have initiated a reform of welfare state provisions from a passive, security and
redistribution-centred approach to an active, individualized and opportunity-centred welfare shifting
the responsibility more and more from state to individual (Lash & Urry, 1987; Rosanvallon, 2000;
Taylor-Gooby, 2011). (2) Increased migration flows challenge the cultural compromise which limits the
social contract to national citizens. The community of solidarity is opened up, extending the collective
benefits beyond the boundaries of the national group (Wimmer, 2002). (3) The shift towards a
secularized and individualized society has weakened the integration capacity of imperative traditional
and collective identities (like social class or religious denomination) that provided the basis for
organized and pillarized party democracy (Bartolini & Mair, 1990; Manin, 1997). In essence, the
frozen political cleavages dominating domestic politics since WWII – left-right; church-state; and
centre/periphery – are becoming less salient or fundamentally transformed.
In general, we observe the transformation of organized modernity into liquid modernity as a
consequence of the de-bounding of the external boundaries of the national state and the internal destructuring of the frozen cleavages. The internal order of the pre-existing bounded space of the nation
state is subject to increasing challenges and is gradually destabilized by the interference of external
and competing authority structures (globalization and European integration) as well as by the
transition from collective identity to individual subject (individualization). Consequently, significant
resources are withdrawn from old institutions, while new conflicts emerge. Substantial parts of the
electorate –especially among the working class voting for Christian-democratic and social-democratic
parties- experience these transformations as an unfair violation of the unwritten social contract by
their previous political patrons (Swyngedouw, 2000). The loosening up of the bonds between lower
classes and mass parties has far-reaching consequences for party systems: this voter-party
dealignment of traditional partisan groups - e.g. youngsters and lower educated, unskilled workers results frequently in fragmented multipartyism.
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Transformation of left-right divides - In their pioneering study Kriesi et al. (2008) argue that
globalization affects the scope and the content of political conflicts by creating a new structural conflict
between winners and losers. Concretely, their study describes that the existing dimension(s) of
cultural conflict are re-articulated and re-organized in terms of a new ‘integration-demarcation’
cleavage (Kriesi et. al, 2006; 2012), opposing authoritarian particularism to libertarian universalism.
Especially populist radical right and green parties have successfully mobilized this new cultural
dimension of the existing left-right divide, while the electoral fortune of mainstream social-democratic,
Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative parties can only be weakly explained by this
transformed cleavage (Swyngedouw, 1994; Bornschier, 2010; Abts, 2012).
The electoral (mis)fortune of the traditional parties seems to be explained much more by economic
and welfare issues (Delezal & Hutter, 2012). Yet, current understanding of the role of the transformed
socio-economic left-right divide in times of liquid modernity remains limited. Political sociology
continues focusing mainly on the emergence and the effects of the new cultural cleavage, while the
fundamental question of attitudinal change towards welfare state and socio-economic policies as well
as its effects on the electoral (mis)fortunes of established and challenging political parties is neglected
(see exceptions on welfare state: Svallfors, 2007; 2012; van Oorschot & Meuleman, 2012). Implicitly,
most studies assume that the post WWII social contract is not fundamentally transformed and
questioned, or at least does not have significant electoral consequences. We believe that this
assumption is untenable. Globalization, European integration and individualization have undermined
the established principles linked to the bounded structuring of the national growth state. In particular,
the contemporary era marked by growing inequality (OECD, 2008) combined with the 2008 financial
crisis could be conceived as a new critical juncture bringing the neoliberal consensus on elite level
more profoundly up for discussion, while the welfare state reforms in a context of growing social
inequality could result in another new structural conflict. This context leads to a re-articulation of the
state interventionism versus neoliberalism cleavage in terms of demarcation versus integration,
whereby the position of universalist and inclusive egalitarianism is opposed to a particularistic and
exclusionist egalitarianism (Derks, 2004; van der Waal et al. 2010; Meuleman & Wets 2011). The
focal point of the public discussion shifts towards social citizenship, i.e. the scope and boundaries of
social solidarity as well as the criteria of deservingness (control, need, reciprocity and identity) (van
Oorschot, 2000; Mau, 2003).
Political mobilization of emerging conflicts – The re-organization of the socio-economic left-right
divide in terms of integration vs. demarcation is strengthened by two profound changes in the social
structure of advanced post-industrial societies: (1) a shrinking low skilled working class and a growing
overlap between old working class and ethnic minorities (ethno-stratification); and (2) an increasing
diversification of the growing middle class in different class fractions based on their sector of
employment and factor endowments (declining petit bourgeoisie; ‘new middle class’ of social-cultural
professionals; a rising new economic class of managers).
These transformations of social structure in hard times of economic crisis create new groups of
winners and losers who constitute new latent political potentials ready for the articulation of their
conflicting (collective) socio-economic interests by political parties. Especially, ethnic minority working
class members are expected to develop more radical and universal views on redistributive policies
and welfare provisions than the so-called native working class (Phalet et al. 2005). Parties position
themselves in the restructured two-dimensional space spanned by the transformed economic and
cultural dimension. In electoral terms, we argue that political parties who mobilize the losers of
modernization are not doing it only in cultural and political terms, but also in economic terms. Until
now, however, attitudes towards socio-economic issues and social policies are not incorporated
explicitly in explanations of changing electoral outcomes. This neglect is unfortunate, since electoral
outcomes and recent reforms of welfare state provisions are not only constrained by socio-economic
and institutional factors, but are also affected by citizens’ welfare attitudes in which policy makers
operate (Brooks & Manza, 2006).
Research objectives - Building further on the seminal work of Kriesi et al. (2006; 2008; 2012), our
study will examine the impact of the crisis of organized capitalism and the recent breakdown in the
neoliberal consensus resulting from the global fiscal crisis on socio-economic attitudes as well as the
impact of these social policy preferences on voting behaviour. We intend to focus predominantly on
the changes at the demand side (voters), while Kriesi et al. are investigating mainly the transformation
of the supply side (parties) in Western Europe.
Our project compares in a longitudinal trend study electoral spaces and conflict structures for the
1990s, 2000s and 2010s, but with particular focus on Belgium as an unique and strategic research
site. Belgium has one national social welfare system, while it is characterized by two rather
independent party systems (De Winter, Swyngedouw & Dumont, 2006) with a different composition.
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This trend study will be supplemented with an international comparative study of Western European
countries (including countries from the south and north of Europe, excluding Eastern European
countries).
We distinguish five main research objectives. (1) The first objective is to develop further an
analytical theory of the transformation of political space and its restructured cultural and economic
dimensions, relating it to the theories of the crisis of organized modernity and new cleavage theory.
(2) The second objective is to investigate across time (1990-2015) the relationship between new
cultural attitudes and new attitudes towards economy and social policies in different sociological strata
of the Belgian electorate. In fact, we try to trace the changes in cleavage structure and in so-called
cleavage coalitions within the electorate – defined by their position in the re-structured twodimensional space – and its identifiable social basis. Special attention will be given to the effect of the
2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath. (3) As political cleavages are not merely reflections of
social divisions (demand side), but have always be organized and articulated by political parties
(supply side), the third research objective is to investigate the stability and changes in policy views of
parties on taxes, state intervention, welfare state and income redistribution by means of collected
media data and the party manifesto data in the period 1990-2015 across selected European
countries. (4) The fourth objective is to link these results (supply side) to attitudes towards income
inequality and welfare state (demand side) within an international trend perspective in different
welfare state regimes. (5) The fifth objective is particularly focused on the socio-economic attitudes of
the low skilled working class comparing the native working class with the new working class of ethnic
minorities in regard to socio-economic attitudes. In essence, we expect that – given the assumption
that differential changes in attitudes towards the scope, boundaries and criteria of social solidarity as
well as state intervention have an effect on cleavage positions and could be mobilized politically – this
study can help to explain the persistent position on a high level of the social-democratic party in
Wallonia as well as the significant and deeply rooted changes in Flemish party system during last two
decades, i.e. the structural decline of the social-democratic, Christian-democratic and liberal parties,
the rise and fall of the extreme right and the recent breakthrough of the conservative neoliberal
Flemish nationalist party.
Data and methodology - The longitudinal hypotheses will be tested using the existing Belgian
federal election surveys based on random samples out of the national register (1991-1995-19992003-2007-2010). We will collect a new random sample survey for Belgium related to the upcoming
federal elections of 2014. To investigate the ethno-stratification hypothesis we will supplement an
additional booster sample of low skilled natives and ethnic minority voters to the 2014 survey. The
comparative Western European study will analyse the data of the European Social Survey round 3
(2006), 4 (2008), 5 (2010), 6 (2012) and 7 (2014). Advanced statistical methodology will be used to
analyse the distinguished research questions, such as Multidimensional Scaling, Latent Class
Analysis, (Multi group) Structural Equation Modelling and Multinomial Logistic regression.
Key References
Castel, R. (2003). From manual workers to wage laborers: Transformation of the social question.
London: Transaction Publishers.
Ferrera, M. (2005). The boundaries of welfare: European integration and the new spatial politics of
social solidarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Dolezal, M., Helbing, M., Höglinger, D., Hutter, S., Wüest, B. (2012),
Political Conflict in Western Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rosanvallon, P. (2000). The new social question: Rethinking the welfare state. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
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