Voting not as a decisionmaking process per se but as a preetermined
expression of the important political elements wich predispose the voter to a party or candidate In this chapter the author says that we are going to see the elemenst wich are the basic predispositions which are passed to us by our position in society and that the scholars and supports of social structural models of voting agree Why does society matter? o The social context in which we grow up o The different groups in society: age, education, gender, occupation, sexuality o Political parties use these social groups for mobilizing support. Since parties have limited resources, they can’t provide tailormade arguments and policies to mobilise each and every voter. o Key social groups define the major lines of division. Zerosum game in the competition for such scarce resources. Interaction between social groups and political system and its results = socialization or political socialization Political cleavages Sartori (1960) said that too much research was being relied too heavily upon idead taken from sociology and then imposed upon political systems, rather than showing how the two relate and how political systems might equally impose themselves upon social structure. Class differences dominated the social structural accounts of voting for years The sociology of politics can be seen in early studies Studies such as the Columbia school look at various social indicators and look for association between these groups and Democrats and Republican vote. Indicators as: socioeconomic classes (occupation, income, and education), religion and ethnicity were found and highlight inn three fundamental process where these indicators maintain longstanding association with vote choice Sociology of politics explanations Social transmission of political choice o Differentiation: individuals with shared characteristics often share a common interest in how policy affects them. This way, those belonging to a different group will also have a different (opposing) interest. o Transmission: intergenerational transmission of values which remain with the voters for their entire lives o Contact: individuals must spend more time in the presence of members of their own social group otherwise, the contact with other groups could provide dissenting views which weaken a voter’s socialized beliefs Research has shown that the beliefs and values imbued at an early age withstand changes in context with offer competing perspectives (crosspressures) Age do not have much effect on voting Individuals integration into society, that is, the organisations they belong to and in which they mays discuss politics or simply engage in social interaction which generally reinforces their beliefs (trade unions and religion) In class voting, contextual effects have been seen over time which vary according to the “class profile” of the area in which an individual lives. That is an invisible communicative network between inhabitants which influences social and political values and behavior In Italy the effects of regional subcultures used to be more important in how people voted than their individual characteristics According to Sartori it does not tell us if the political parties are representing the different social groups In voting as democratic representation, we want to know whether parties are representing their voters, as well as knowing that voters are voting for their parties out of a perception of interest The same social division may not have influence in some countries: In France religion and class mattered; in Switzerland and Belgium class, language and religion are before class; in UK only class matter. Political sociology explanations Lipset and Rokkan’s work (1967): the first comparative analysis to provide a framework linking social structure to party system format and electoral behavior Instead of taking a microsociological approach ˜that is, identifying the mains patterns in individual voters’ social profiles and their party choice ˜the work adopted a historical macro~sociological approach Politics rather than being the simple reflection of social structure that Sartori objected to, became a dependent and independent variable. That way, social clevages could be used for mobilisational purposes by elites They adapted Talcott Parson’s theory of differentiation, which looked at how different subsystems within society (economic system, political system, family…) serve to orient individuals in their decision and behavior. These subsystems are linked to functions that the system must fulfil if it is to survive, and of which there are four A G I L The most important are G I L o G = goal attainment The system must decide which aims are to be given priority in its maintenance and development = polity o I = Integration = The systems must arrange and regulate the interactions between its different components = communities, asociations, churches, legal frameworks o L = latency = The systems must ensure that individuals maintain the values and motive which sustain it = families, schools, etc These interactions contribute to the shape of the political system via the process of nationstate building and democratization In terms of mass electoral behavior, the I~L and L~G interactions are clearly of the greatest importance o I~L = organizational groups and individuals’ involvement = party formation o L~G = political leaders and support of individuals = elections In democratization process there is compettion between the “new” national party and the “old” groupings which exercise influence and power at the local level o I = the elites is based in capital, being the symbolical and territorial “heart” of the national characterized by greater urban development and secularization. The peripheral areas and their characteristics social groups not always are allowed access to representation o II = Church~Estate relationship = In counterreformation countries such as France, Italy and Austria religions was still counted in cleavage terms. In Reformed Nordic countries such as Norway and UK, the religion was part of the state and no separate religious cleavage developed. National Revolution = the very formation of the state promotes conflicts which until that point have remained latent. However, there are two threshold of democratization that Lipset and Rokkan found indispensable to the formations of the parties: the possibility to manifest opposition without threat of state repression; extension of suffrage to allow these groups to compete. The third threshold is representation in Parliament Second critical juncture = Industrial Revolution o Primary/Secondary sector division = agricultural x industrial sector (specific interests) o Workers/Employers (class cleavages) In Uk there was no room for an agricultural party because of the correspondent Tory/Whig Scandinavian states = close alliance between the centrebased elite and an urban economic elite