Goldberg Andreas C
University of Amsterdam (ASCoR) The Netherlands.
Eur J Polit Res. 2020 Feb;59(1):68-90. doi: 10.1111/1475-6765.12336. Epub 2019 Mar 29.
Since the heyday of cleavage voting in the 1960s and 1970s, the majority of studies presents evidence of a decline in cleavage voting - caused by either structural or behavioural dealignment. Structural dealignment denotes changes in group size responsible for a decrease in cleavage voting, whereas behavioural dealignment concerns weakening party-voter links over time. A third phenomenon posited in this article is the collective voting abstention of certain (social) groups, here referred to as 'political dealignment', which results in a new type of division of voting versus abstention. The purpose of this article is to examine the three underlying mechanisms for the decline in social class and religious cleavage voting across four Western countries (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States) over the last 40-60 years using longitudinal post-election data. The results prove a strong presence of political dealignment and increasing turnout gaps regarding both the class and religious cleavage. Furthermore, whenever a decline in cleavage voting is present, it is mainly caused by changes in the social groups' behaviour and less by changing social structures in a country.
自20世纪60年代和70年代阶级投票的鼎盛时期以来，大多数研究表明阶级投票出现了下降——这是由结构或行为性的脱钩导致的。结构脱钩指的是导致阶级投票减少的群体规模变化，而行为脱钩则涉及随着时间推移政党与选民联系的减弱。本文提出的第三种现象是某些（社会）群体的集体投票弃权，这里称为“政治脱钩”，这导致了一种新型的投票与弃权划分。本文的目的是利用选举后纵向数据，研究过去40至60年间四个西方国家（英国、荷兰、瑞士和美国）社会阶级和宗教阶级投票下降的三种潜在机制。结果证明，政治脱钩现象严重，阶级和宗教分裂方面的投票率差距不断扩大。此外，每当出现阶级投票下降时，主要是由社会群体行为的变化引起的，而不是由一个国家社会结构的变化引起的。
