Class Politics and Political Change in the United States, 1952-1992
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2557421 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clembrook, Clem Brooks (0000-0002-1406-2291, Indiana University, corresponding author), Jeff Manza (0000-0002-8163-8334, Pennsylvania State University) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 379 |
| Publication date | 1997-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Forces (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7732 • E-ISSN: 1534-7605 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2580718 |
| OpenAlex | W4244353651 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
Recent debates over the relationship between class and voting in democratic capitalist societies have focused primarily on the question of whether levels of class voting have declined. As a result, few studies have distinguished between “class voting” as an outcome versus class factors as causal mechanisms of vote choice. This distinction is critical to understanding what role class-related factors play in explaining vote choice—and thus to advancing debates over the changing relationship between class and political behavior in the U.S. and elsewhere. We use National Election Studies data to first investigate class-specific changes in voting behavior in presidential elections and then analyze the causal mechanisms explaining the three most significant class-specific trends. We find that while the realignment of the self-employed with the Republican Party is largely explained by class-related factors, professionals' realignment with the Democratic Party is a product of their increasingly liberal views of social issues. Also, prompted by higher levels of economic satisfaction and declining support for the welfare state, unskilled workers' historically high levels of support for Democratic candidates have eroded since the 1980 Presidential election. Our analyses also show that while class politics increasingly competes with other salient bases of voting behavior, the political impact of social issue attitudes has not displaced the class cleavage in recent presidential elections
Class (philosophy) · Cleavage (geology) · Democracy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Presidential election · Presidential system · Social class · Sociology · Voting · Voting behavior · Welfare state · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Equal Opportunity, Market Preference and Voter Turnout
Social Democracy After the Cold War
Social Class and Party Identification During the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Presidencies
Survey Research in English‐Canadian Political Sociology
Explaining Partisan Change among Northeastern Whites
Economic Status versus Same‐Sex Marriage Referenda in the 2004 Democratic Presidential Vote in “Appalachian” Counties
Changing the issues of the electoral arena
The Democrats Loss of the White Working Class
The Income Gap
Economic Change and Class Conflict over Tax Attitudes
The Re-stratification of Czech Politics
How Class Shapes Critical Resentment Toward Inequality
The Gender Gap in U.S. Presidential Elections
Group Components of U.S. Presidential Voting Across the States
Political Parties and Uncertainty in Developing Democracies
The revolt of the Rust Belt
Civil Rights Liberalism and the Suppression of a Republican Political Realignment in the United States, 1972 to 1996
A Complex Religion Approach to the Differing Impact of Education on Black and White Religious Group Members' Political Views
Why Do High-Income Democrats Support Redistribution? The Roles of Partisanship, Racial Attitudes and Fiscal Populism
How Complex Religion Can Improve Our Understanding of American Politics
Is America Fragmenting
The Social Bases of Rural-Urban Political Divides
| Unique citing works | 22 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,79 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2025 (28) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 21 |