The Impact of Cleavages on Swiss Voting Behaviour: A Modern Research Approach (Contributions to Political Science)

This book studies the impact of cleavages on electoral choices. Based on a case study of Switzerland, it analyses how cleavages divide voters into voting blocs and how this influences Swiss voting behaviour and the Swiss party system. The first part examines the development of salient cleavages such as religion, social class, rural-urban, and language between 1971 and 2011. Behavioural changes among voters and changes in the size of social groups are explored as explanatory factors for the decline of cleavage voting. The second part proposes a contextual perspective analysis of the current impact of cleavages using both individual and contextual factors. These factors are also combined to examine interaction effects between the individual and the context. Finally, the third part analyses whether the impact of cleavages has harmonised across different contexts (Swiss cantons) over time. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 7 Acronyms 10 1 Introduction 12 References 17 2 Theory of Cleavage Voting 19 2.1 Schools of Electoral Research 20 2.2 Electoral Behaviour in a Cleavage Perspective 22 2.2.1 Definition of Cleavage 23 2.2.2 Linking the Cleavage Concept to Real Voting 26 2.2.3 Historical Cleavages and New Types 28 2.2.4 Recent Developments 32 2.2.5 Cleavage System in Switzerland 36 2.3 The Contextual Aspect of Voting 39 2.3.1 Definition of Contextual Effect 41 2.3.2 Mechanism 44 2.3.3 Moderating Influence 47 References 48 3 Longitudinal Impact of Cleavages 55 3.1 Conceptualising the Impact of Cleavage 56 3.2 Theoretical Effect and Empirical Evidence 57 3.2.1 Religious Voting Between Decline and Content Change 57 3.2.1.1 Theoretical Effect 57 3.2.1.2 Hypotheses 61 3.2.1.3 International Evidence 62 3.2.1.4 Evidence from Switzerland 64 3.2.2 A Changing, but Stable Class Vote? 65 3.2.2.1 Theoretical Effect 65 3.2.2.2 Hypotheses 72 3.2.2.3 International Evidence 73 3.2.2.4 Evidence from Switzerland 75 3.2.3 The Classical Rural-Urban Cleavage in Decline 76 3.2.3.1 Theoretical Effect 76 3.2.3.2 Hypothesis 79 3.2.3.3 International and Swiss Evidence 79 3.2.4 A Stable, but Moderate Influence of Language 80 3.2.4.1 Theoretical Effect 80 3.2.4.2 Hypothesis 82 3.2.4.3 International and Swiss Evidence 83 3.3 Data and Method 84 3.3.1 Swiss Electoral Studies 84 3.3.2 Operationalisation 85 3.3.2.1 Dependent Variables 86 3.3.2.2 Independent Variables 87 3.3.3 Lambda Index 91 3.4 Cleavage Strength Over Time 94 3.4.1 The Declining but Prevailing Religious Effect 96 3.4.2 Social Class in Transformation and with a New Facet 104 3.4.3 The Vanished Effect of the Classical Rural-UrbanCleavage 111 3.4.4 Language with a Modest but Stable Effect 114 3.5 Conclusion 118 References 123 4 Impact Across Parties 129 4.1 Party-Specific Voting Behaviour 130 4.2 Data and Method 133 4.3 Descriptive Statistics of Individual Party Vote 134 4.3.1 Religion 135 4.3.2 Social Class 136 4.3.3 Rural-Urban 137 4.3.4 Normative Variables 139 4.4 Net Effects of Cleavage Voting 140 4.5 Conclusion 146 References 148 5 Contextual Approach of Voting 149 5.1 Cantonal Distribution of Cleavage Influence 150 5.2 Cleavage Voting in Three Types of Cantons 155 5.2.1 Cluster Analysis 155 5.2.2 Voting Patterns in Three Clusters 159 5.3 Individual, Contextual and Joint Effects 165 5.3.1 Two Faces of Religious Influence 165 5.3.2 Social Class Voting Due to Economic Inequalities 168 5.3.3 Urbanisation and its Influence on Voting Patterns 170 5.4 Data and Method 173 5.5 Empirical Findings 179 5.5.1 Separate Influence of Individual and Contextual Effects 179 5.5.2 Cross-Level Effects 186 5.6 Conclusion 194 References 197 6 Combined Approach in a Longitudinal and ContextualPerspective 200 6.1 Theory About Harmonisation of Cleavage Voting 203 6.2 Data and Method 207 6.2.1 Typology of Swiss cantons 207 6.2.2 Lambda Comparison Across Clusters 209 6.3 Results 212 6.4 Conclusion 222 References 225 7 General Conclusion 227 References 236 A Appendix 237 Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-7 Theory of Cleavage Voting....Pages 9-44 Longitudinal Impact of Cleavages....Pages 45-118 Impact Across Parties....Pages 119-138 Contextual Approach of Voting....Pages 139-189 Combined Approach in a Longitudinal and Contextual Perspective....Pages 191-217 General Conclusion....Pages 219-228 Back Matter....Pages 229-244