Cleavage Theory
The Cleavage Theory ( English cleavage , 'divide', 'split') is a political science theory in choosing research that tries to election results and the development of party systems in European countries on the basis of long-term lines of conflict to explain within society.
The theory was developed in 1967 by the two political scientists Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan . Their approach is one of the most important theories to explain the formation and persistence of national party systems . Due to the political upheavals in the last thirty years (emergence of the environmental movement , collapse of the real socialist states , strengthening of the New Right, etc.), the view is increasingly gaining ground in political science that traditional lines of conflict in Western industrial societies are becoming less important and thus losing their explanatory power the cleavage theory decreases.
Theoretical approach
The cleavage theory is based on the assumption that there are not simply two groups of supporters and opponents of political decisions, but a more or less continuous arrangement of voters on a policy dimension to which the positions of parties can also be assigned. In elections, the individual chooses the party whose policy offers are closest to his ideal point. Accordingly, a conflict line is the line running at right angles to the policy dimension, which separates the supporters and opponents in a specific vote. There are permanent lines of conflict when the policy dimensions in question are repeatedly relevant for specific decisions and when the voters repeatedly fall into the same groups of supporters and opponents.
According to Lipset and Rokkan (1967), the European party systems developed in the late 19th century on the basis of four fundamental lines of conflict. The lines of conflict are permanent and reflect conflicts of interest or values of various organized social groups . The organizations of these social groups established links with specific political decision-makers, and these links gave rise to the political parties in the long term :
- Capital for labor
- Developed in the course of the industrialization process (industrial conflict).
- Church versus State
- Originated through secularization and the conflict over the control of school education, law on the separation of state and church in France in 1905 and the Kulturkampf in Germany in the 1870s (cultural conflict).
- City against country
- Also emerged in the industrialization process, the line of conflict runs between the primary and secondary economic sector.
- Center against periphery
- Originated from the Reformation conflict during the formation of the nation state between autonomous regional and central-national decision-making bodies.
The cleavage approach is a successful instrument for explaining the emergence of party systems in European industrialized countries. In a phase of great stability in the majority of the parties in the democratic states, he had a high explanatory power. Since the 1980s , however, there has been a change in the party systems, with long-term ties to certain parties empirically demonstrably decreasing. These are effects that are difficult to reconcile with the cleavage theory. Likewise, the cleavage theory cannot explain the falling voter turnout and protest voting behavior. Right-wing populist or ecological parties also fall outside the scope of the declaration.
In the West German post-war society of the theory is that the two lines of conflict state against church and labor for capital were formative. In the conflict between state and church, the main issue was which of the two institutions had the authority to interpret school education. While the Union parties and above all the German Center Party preferred religiously bound denominational schools , the SPD , FDP and KPD favored state and religiously independent schools. Ultimately, the separation of state and church largely prevailed, even if individual denominational schools have been preserved to this day.
The FDP and CDU, on the other hand, represented similar views in economic and social policy, while the SPD (and until it was banned also the KPD) saw itself, especially in the early years of the Federal Republic, as a pure party of workers. The center was divided on this. The economic and socio-political model of the "bourgeois" parties, the social market economy , largely replaced socialist ideas. The SPD largely recognized this in the Godesberg program of 1959 .
With the emergence of the Greens in the 1980s, a new line of conflict developed between so-called post - material values and classical political values. Even if weakened, these lines of conflict are still clearly recognizable in today's political discussion. a. in the reform of the social systems (capital versus labor), federalism reform and decentralization policy in France , Italy and Great Britain (center versus periphery) or in dealing with the religious confrontation with Islam (church versus state).
See also
literature
- Tilo Görl: Class-bound cleavage structures in East and West Germany. An empirical study (= studies on election and attitude research. Volume 2). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 3-8329-2090-0 .
- Seymour Martin Lipset , Stein Rokkan : Party Systems and Voter Alignments. Cross-National Perspectives. Free Press, New York 1967 ( PDF; 6.8 MB ).
- Gerd Mielke : Social conflicts and their representation in the German party system - comments on the cleavage model by Lipset and Rokkan. In: Ulrich Eith, Ders. (Ed.): Social conflicts and party systems. Country and regional studies. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-13485-X , pp. 77-95.
- Franz Urban Pappi : Cleavage. In: Dieter Nohlen , Rainer-Olaf Schultze (Hrsg.): Lexicon of political science. Theories, methods, terms. Volume 1 (A − M). 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-54116-X , pp. 104-106.
- Lane, Erik Savante, Ersson: Politics and Society in Western Europe . London 1994. pp. 37-75
Individual evidence
- ^ Cf. Pappi: Cleavage. P. 104 f.