What Remains of Class Voting?

Nonna Mayer (1)

1 CEE - Centre d'études européennes et de politique comparée (Sciences Po, CNRS)

According to the thesis put forward by the sociologist Seymour M. Lipset in his book, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, the electoral game is essentially a reflection of the class struggle: “In virtually every economically developed country, the lower-income groups vote mainly for parties of the Left, while the higher-income groups vote mainly for parties of the right.” However, almost thirty years later he is one of the first people, along with Terry Clark, to predict the disappearance of social classes and of the privileged link between left-wing parties and people from working-class backgrounds. [First paragraph]

Keywords: Class voting; Elections

Domains: Political science; Sociology

Nonna Mayer. What Remains of Class Voting?. Pascal Perrineau; Luc Rouban. Politics in France and Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.167 - 181, 2009, 9781403962164. ⟨hal-02299019⟩