Political Cleavages across Nations

This chapter focuses on the variations in cleavage politics across the European Union member states. The analyses compare the structure of issue positions across nations to see if the set of issues defining the economic and cultural cleavages are comparable. While there is some cross-national variation, both cleavages are evident across the European Union. The social group positions on both cleavages are also broadly similar across nations. The chapter then examines the social correlates of cleavage positions to see if factors such as the economic structure or the religious composition of societies affect group alignments. The results emphasize the commonality of the basic patterns for the EU overall to the pattern in specific member states. The analyses are primarily based on the 2009 European Election Study.

Biology · Cleavage (geology) · Economic geography · Economics · European union · Geography · International trade · Member states · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Religion and Society Interactions