2 Post-materialist Cleavages

What happened in the Western societies during the 60s, 70s, and 80s? Did a new social cleavage emerge and what evidence is there to show it? The fact that both the welfare state and liberal democracy had become self-evident facts to the overall majority of the population suggests a sort of silent revolution in people’s minds (Inglehart) that is arguably crucial to an understanding of why party systems appear to have changed in the 60s-80s. Both factors had not been self-evident before.

Ever since Inglehart (1977), Barnes and Kaase (1979) and others suggested the possibility of politization of post-material values in society, a lot of speculative literature has emerged on the link between new social movements and the possibility of a new cleavage.[4] Barnes and Kaase use the term “interest cleavage,” and write (like Inglehart) about “post-material values” and “material values,” but also conclude that a cleavage is emerging that dominates the older cleavages (523-533). Kitschelt and Dalton et al. operationalized and quantified the idea of new values into a left libertarian vs. right authoritarian cleavage and new left/old vs. old left/right respectively (1994; 1985). Dalton et al. in Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, try to explain electoral change by pointing to the possibility of a new cleavage, or “New Politics” (1985). To them cleavages are: “relatively stable patterns of polarization, in which groups support given policies or parties, while other groups support opposing policies or parties. (Inglehart in Dalton et al.: 25)”

Two observations: first, note the softening of concepts like “silent revolution”. This definition seems a far cry from the revolutionary origins through which the initial four cleavages were forged. Second, unlike Lipset and Rokkan who depicted parties as the endpoint of a history rooted in cleavages, political parties and the democratic opposition vs. governing parties have become only one part of political participation in the definition. In the concluding chapter the editors write: “New Social Movements may realign or rejuvenate party systems without breaking down primary cleavage structure.” (455) They argue that social movements must develop an institutional basis in order for a new cleavage to become integrated into the party system (457-459). The emergence of this kind of literature points to a problem central to the concept of cleavage. Lipset and Rokkan started with strong revolutionary, often violent conflict, leading to cleavages. Polarization, opposition, conflict are terms that continuously reappear in the literature to describe cleavages. Now it seems that different value-preferences are supposed to lead to cleavage. It seems doubtful that differences in alleged new values can be packed together with deep societal conflict under the category of cleavage. The softening up of the Lipset-Rokkan model itself by this body of literature (as seen in the example from Inglehart above) provides scholars with the possibility to employ not only the concept of cleavage, but the entire model in a far broader, and even more vague, sense than it was intended.

Another interesting and more important aspect about much of the literature on the new cleavage, is that it takes political participation other than party politics much more seriously than traditional research has. Although Lipset and Rokkan were most interested in saying something about parties and party systems, the inclusion of social movements and their institutionalization (e.g. Corporatism, or presence on boards etc) was in line with the original idea about cleavage not only being reflected in party systems. (Flora et al. 1999; Lipset and Rokkan 1967)

Oskarson tried to find out if Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory still applies to present Europe (in Thomassen 2005). Her research revealed that party allegiance had indeed decreased and that the traditional four social cleavages seem to have lost importance. However, she also noted that the older political parties had successfully managed to redefine cleavages, which is also related partly to transformation to catch-all or cartel parties.[5] Redefining here means framing new issues in a way that they fit old cleavages (cf. Marks and Hooghe: 164). This fact—the redefinition of cleavages by political parties—is another reason to be skeptical about new values and a new cleavage. New issues may simply be confused with new values.

The latest important project arguing in favor of the emergence of a new cleavage is Hutter’s idea of an “integration-demarcation” cleavage with globalization as the catalyst for this new cleavage. (2014) A commendable element in his research, is that he also incorporates political protest next to electoral politics. Hutter builds on research by Ingleheart and others arguing in favor of the emergence of a new postmaterialist cleavage in the 1960s and 1970s. The “integration-demarcation” cleavage could be summed up as the conflict between globalization winners and losers. The author argues that this new cleavage is distinct from traditional cleavages and posits that on one pole we have globalization winners favoring immigration, European integration, and economic liberalization, whereas on the other pole we have opponents of these issues.

Aside from the fact that Hutter’s research bases itself in part on the literature dealing with the emergence of a new cleavage in the 1960s-1970s, there are a number of other reasons to be very skeptical about the actual existence of an integration-demarcation cleavage.

First of all, identifying globalization as a trigger of new forms of political protest against political elites may be an accurate finding, however, it is by far not sufficient to equate it to the emergence of a new cleavage. Instead it is more likely that political elites that have gradually disconnected themselves from their traditional base of support since the 1960s are simply facing new protests about new issues. Second, the argument that globalization losers are increasingly protesting political elites is a process that gradually took form at the onset of a neoliberal economic consensus among western industrialized societies’ governing parties. The globalization losers of today’s EU, have a tradition reaching back to the losers of increased liberalization, privatization, and restructuring of the individual member state economies. Therefore it might be more accurate to argue in favor of the rejuvenation of the old class cleavage, resulting from the growing number of underpaid, temporary, and gig-economy jobs.[6] Third, while it is correct that migration has become a major dividing issue in industrialized liberal democracies, the core division is the same as the one underlying Lipset and Rokkan’s centre-periphery cleavage: a dominant population group conflicting with a subject population. Therefore it would be more accurate to argue that the increased influx of newcomers also rejuvenated this cleavage, instaed of contributing to a new cleavage. Fourth, Hutter only focuses on Europe, which in itself may severely skew findings with regard to globalization effects. In many ways Europe, and in particular the EU, could be seen as an intermediate level of governance, not exactly a nation-state, but also not exactly a European federal state. In other words, the typical unit of analysis for cleavage politics, the traditional nation-state, is blurred when it comes to studying the EU. Changes and elements that one might easily classify as a result of globalization such as migration will to a large extent be part of internal unification processes of the EU. It is impossible to draw a clear line, contrary to studying cleavages outside of Europe. Last, to defend his thesis of a new integration-demarcation cleavage, Hutter bases himself on Ingleheart and others who made similar arguments yet they describing events in the developed countries, going beyond Europe. Hutter only includes European societies, thereby making it difficult to see in how far his thesis could hold up in other cases. Based on the first and second point brought up here, one might even argue that Hutter’s case selection is a classic example of selecting on the dependent variable; or only selecting those cases that will most likely fit your thesis.

Having reviewed the literature on the possibility of a new cleavage, there does not appear to be any conclusive evidence to support the existence of a new cleavage. This body of literature has neither provided sufficient evidence to conclude that traditional cleavages are being replaced by something else, nor that cleavages in themselves have become irrelevant. Reminiscent of the Rae and Taylor definition, the literature on post-industrialism softens up the language of cleavages to a point that it becomes too broad and empirically problematic.(1970) The new cleavage theories don’t seem to have any clear sociological and/or ideological basis, which would be crucial to an argument a new cleavage has emerged. Since cleavages originated in deep societal conflicts hundreds of years ago, it seems doubtful a supposed new-cleavage has indeed come into being. On top of that we may just be dealing with new issues resulting from technological advances that in themselves do not constitute or aggregate in new values, but in fact may be framed by political parties and other forms of political expressions in terms of old values and cleavages. The most important argument against the notion of a new cleavage, however, is that the suggested new cleavage does not even come close to meet the criteria by which Lipset and Rokkan (and Mair) defined the concept. Despite a lack of conclusive evidence that suggests a new cleavage has come into existence, the literature on new politics, post-materialism, new social movements, and the effects of globalization, does support the central claim of this review: parties appear to be only one way—albeit a more easily quantifiable one—to analyze translation of cleavages as proposed by Lipset and Rokkan.