The Sociological Approach Of Cleavage Theory

These four cleavages emerged as the part of the foundation of the argument for a sociological approach to explaining party systems. A social cleavage is a far cry from a political party, and so Lipset and Rokkan had to provide a transition from the former to the latter; which they did in three parts. The first being that these cleavages existed before all adult males were given the privilege of voting. What this meant was that before these men could have joined together and voted one way or another there already existed certain issues on which they held viewpoints, whether consciously or not. The second point they made was that during this time of enfranchisement of the masses, the structure made it so that political organizations had to rely on support of the people to continue to enjoy political success. Typically this support came from certain factions that were strongly supportive of whatever ideal the organization held. The final point they make about transitioning from cleavage to party system is that when there is a movement towards better representation it’s the result of a fracturing of current parties and not new ones. All of these points illustrate the steps taken in order to arrive at the assumption that party systems are a function of a sociological interaction between the people of a nation.

Some common issues that political parties present can include problems with inequality, wrong education of the people, the spread of communal hatred, and the decrease of personal individuality. Issues with inequality originate from the thought that one political party doesn’t have the right to make decisions for the public and many citizens may not support everything that a specific Party supports. Educational issues with the political system are caused by political parties trying to obtain votes through false promises and propaganda, this type of advertisement creates misunderstandings among citizens. The spread of communal hatred is based on the fact that many people believe that religion based parties create hatred against other communities and cause conflict in our country. The decrease of personal individuality has also become an issue, this refers to how political parties expect people to follow them blindly and how these parties refuse to be criticized for their own shortcomings.

Unlike parties in many other countries, political parties in the U.S. are relatively weak in terms of their ability to mobilize voters to register and ultimately vote on election- day. This inability to mobilize voters has direct correlation to the fact that membership and affiliation in political

The Funnel of Causality model describes voting behaviour in terms of socio-demographics, party identification, issues, and candidates. In this essay I will focus on issues because they can be compared between countries. An issue is essentially a problem that is perceived to be important, and there is an actor with “ownership” of the issue, meaning that there is someone who is thought to be “the best man for the job” so to speak. The economy isn’t an issue because you can’t have “ownership” over the economy. Issues are important because they explain a lot about voting behaviour.

Next, the political sociology approach focuses to centre on groups and societal forces ((Blidook, Cochrane, Dyck, 2017). There are many social cleavages such as regions, economic classes, and ethnic groups that cause differing opinions. Alberta works with Kinder Morgan to benefit their economy however the province does not cater towards the needs of British Columbia. Kinder Morgan does not consider the impact to the First Nations, as they are an ethnic group who value nature. Similarly, the Canadian government does not consider the different economic classes that will be affected by the pipeline, if an oil spill/leak were to occur. Plus, with the expansion of the pipelines there will be no affordable housing, there will be alcohol and drug

Political parties are critical structures in the modern society and universal phenomena in most democracies. In fact, they form major objects of intensive study as they are usually the centre of political and social power. They engage in most activities that are of significant consequence in the lives of citizens and link the common populace to the government. Therefore, it is important to understand political parties fully from every perspective of political systems so obtain their real importance in democracies. A political party is basically a group of citizens who converge as voters, activists, electoral candidates and office holders with a common party label and seek to elect party members into public offices. While modern political

As society rapidly changes with an influx of new ideas and issues, studying the college educated and those who are not will help evaluate behaviors and attitudes towards the government, ultimately, clearing the way to adaption into a modern society that perhaps offer remedies of educational and voting discrepancies or even close the gaps between political ideology or identification. Hence, this paper proposes the research question: How does education level influence political party identification.

A voter can be defined as an individual who votes, or has the right to vote, in elections. Voting behaviour is explained using the concepts of expressive voting and strategic voting. A rational voter would act more strategically, that is, the voter would vote to produce an election outcome which is as close as possible to his or her own policy preferences, rather than voting on the basis of party attachment, ideology, or social group membership (expressive voting). Strategic voting has become more important than voting on the basis of political cleavages (expressive voting), so voters have become more rational in their approach, however there is always an element of expressiveness in their behaviour. Political parties were initially formed to represent the interests of particular groups in society however, as these parties became more universal in the appeal of their policy programmes, voting behaviour shifted from expressive to strategic. This essay explores the reasons behind the declining importance of political cleavages, and the rise of strategic voting.

The main purpose of the article by Matt Motyl titled, “Liberals and conservatives are (geographically) dividing” is that political parties’ affiliations are dividing the U.S. This can be seen through the locations many Americans live such as liberals going to more urban areas as opposed to the conservatives to go to less populated areas in rural states (Motyl, 2014). The author uses the Ideological Enclavement Theory to explain the division of people in the U.S through ideological-segregated enclaves (Motyl, 2014).

It was found that national party divisions are typically ran by elites that worked together to unite divided parties to participate together in the hopes of the party winning the presidency. Having a diverse set of candidates does not imply that the party is divided although it could worsen existing disunions. Measuring national party division was crucial in the research; in the 1970s delegate votes at the national convection gave an approximate measure of divisiveness. One way that national party division can be measured is by the proportion of convention votes through the Democratic nominee without the corresponding proportion for the Republican nominee. This delegate-based measure is for the most part based on party activist, in which are picked by the presidential campaign by the partisan voters. On the other hand, another manner to measure is by aggregate primary vote that is comparing the proportion of the national primary won by the two nominees. Moreover, to measure the impact national party division has they used convection votes and aggregate primary vote to portray that the substantive conclusion does not rely on how the variable is measured (12). Although there is no precise or best way to put to use state level primary divisiveness it is clear that in presidential campaigns, a divisive state primary the electorate rather have a candidate than the eventual nominee. Thus, this type of divisiveness can be measured by the proportion of the vote for the candidate other than the final nominee. Another approach would rely on the competitiveness of the primary, which is measure by a vote margin of the two leading candidates in the

This idea is sustained by the Pew Report on Political Polarization, which reports a sharp increase of party polarization among the most engaged and active members of both the Democratic and Republican parties. According to Pew, “almost four-in-ten (38%) politically engaged Democrats are consistent liberals, up from only 8% in 1994 and 20% in 2004” (Pew, Polarization, Section 1). Clearly, involved members of parties contribute to the polarization of the parties to which they belong. In their essay “Is Polarization a Myth?”, political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Kyle Saunders rebut Fiorina’s conception of polarization-as-elite-driven, replacing Fiorina’s model with the theory that individual American voters are the vectors of political polarization. In “Is Polarization a Myth?”, Abramowitz and Saunders challenge five of Fiorina’s critical assumptions: that the American public consists largely of moderates; that, while differences between parties have increased, the increases have only been slight; that cultural and political differences between traditionally “red” and “blue” states are only marginal; that “social cleavages,” such as differences in age, race, or religious identification have decreased; and that the polarization of party elites contributes to a depression in voter turnout (Abramowitz, 543). Employing a survey

Disconnected is essentially a book in two parts. The first is an extensive compendium of data in support of the claim that there is indeed a widening disconnect between a largely moderate voting public and an ideological polarized political class. The second part is the story of how that disconnect came about. Fiorina argues in “Disconnect” that America’s social evolution has increased the homogeneity within the parties and widened the differences between them, a dynamic that encourages politicians to “construct electoral coalitions out of group building blocks

Between the years of 1945-1970 social class dominantly shaped the voting behaviour of individuals. Whilst there has been a decline in prominence of class voting: Labour remains the most popular working class party and Conservatives perform best among middle-class voters. Social classes are defined by economic and social

Many political science researchers study the forces that drive the vote. One of the earliest, and most well known, books about election studies is The American Voter. Written in 1960, the book tries to explain a model that describes what drives Americans to vote the way they do. The model suggests that social factors determine ones party identification, which determines one's issue positions and evaluation of candidate's characteristics. These forces all work together to determine how one will vote. This model may or may not still hold true today, as political researchers are not in agreement as to what exactly drives the vote. One thing that does remain true, however, is that factors such as social groups, party identification, issues,

Populism is not as influential as it is perceived to be. It has been used to cover