Description
Oxford Political Realignment Economics Culture and Electoral Change 2018 Edition by Russell J. Dalton
The process of electoral change is accelerating in contemporary democracies, and this book explains why. The emergence of Green parties in the 1980s and recent far right parties, Brexit and Trump's 2016 victory are parts of this overall process. Political Realignment tracks the evolution of citizen and elite opinions on economic and cultural issues from the 1970s to the 2010s-and the impact of these changes on electoral politics and public policy. Citizen positions on these cleavages have realigned over time, producing a similar realignment in the structure of the party systems to represent these demands. Economic issues remain important, now joined by divisions on cultural issues as a backlash to modernization. Assembling anunprecedented time series of empirical evidence, this study explains the new forces of elector change in both Europe and the United States. Table of contents : - Introduction1: The Evolution of Political CompetitionSocial Structure and Political Cleavages2: Citizens, Issues, and Political Cleavages3: The Social Distribution of Cleavage Positions4: Cleavage Patterns across Nations5: Elites, Issues, and Political CleavagesPolitical Cleavages and Party Alignments6: Placing Parties in the Political Space7: Voters and Parties8: Congruence and Representation9: The American ExperienceConclusion10: Realignment and BeyondAppendicesA: Issue Questions from the European Election StudiesB: Citizen Issue Structures by NationC: Identifying Party PositionsD: Party Cleavage PositionsE: Party Cleavage Polarization ScoresF: The Complexity of MeasurementG: Construction of Economic and Cultural Indices in the United States