Class Voting in the 21st Century Class Influences on Economic and Cultural Ideological Positions and Vote Choice
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2024-07-09
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en
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Where class voting was once a given in many Western democracies, research at the end of the last century found that the working class increasingly voted less for parties on the left. A debate between scholars emerged on whether this phenomenon should be viewed as either dealignment or realignment. Following the funnel of causality, this thesis aims to find out to what extend class has an influence on the ideological position and vote choice of an individual. As politics has become two-dimensional, the ideological position on the economic and the cultural dimension has been studied. This has been done by using ESS data from 2002 till 2020 for nine European countries. The analyses showed that the importance of class in influencing the economic dimension has decreased over time. Contrary to expectations, the influence of class on the cultural dimensions is also decreasing, yet class continues to significantly impact vote choice. While traditional class voting has decreased, class remains a critical factor in the vote choice of individuals. Modern class voting depends on both the economic and cultural dimensions of politics and thus classes seem to have realigned along these dimensions, although or some classes the cultural dimension has become the most important.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen