Sociocultural Conflict in a Globalized Era

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In the decades since Lipset and Rokkan’s prediction that European party systems would “freeze” in their highly structured, class-based states, competition over sociocultural issues has dominated the West European electoral arena. In the 1970s and 1980s, such competition was based on conflict over traditional v. modern ways of life. “New left” parties advocated for issues such as gender and sexual equality, multiculturalism, environmental protection, while the radical right hoped to halt society’s progressive turn and return to an era of monocultural, patriarchal nation-states.

As electoral volatility and destructuration continued into the 2000s and 2010s, new sociocultural issues came to prominence. Two crises that hit Europe during the last several years---the debt and refugee crises---bring even greater urgency to questions of sovereignty, national identity, and ways of life, as governments, parties, and voters fight over how to best have a united Europe, preserve national sovereignty, and welcome—or expel—needy newcomers from abroad. This panel seeks to explore the state of sociocultural conflict in today’s Europe. How have drastic sociopolitical shifts since the “postmaterialist era” transformed voters, voting, and political systems?

Caroline Lancaster’s paper, “Value Shift: Immigration Attitudes and the Sociocultural Divide” shows that immigration attitudes no longer necessarily “fit” with attitudes towards gender egalitarianism. She shows, with Dutch panel data, that individuals across the political spectrum are becoming increasingly accepting of gender equality, but that immigration attitudes remain remarkably entrenched overtime. This means that younger individuals are quite likely to exhibit “liberal nationalist” attitude configurations wherein they strongly oppose immigration but support women’s rights.

Jeffery Nonnemacher and Jennifer Fitzgerald’s paper leverages local variation in income inequality in Sweden with an original survey experiment. They examine how inequality affects vote choice, as well as attitudes towards immigration, European integration, and climate change. Preliminary data indicates that overall, high inequality erodes Green Party support but increases support for the radical right Sweden Democrats, yet these effects are conditional on attitudinal, and other contextual, factors.

Will Horne’s paper asks why support for the UK Labour Party has eroded in working class areas and soared in affluent areas. He finds that since the 1970s, the party has made a strategic decision to run fewer candidates from lower class backgrounds, leading to a decline in working class descriptive representation. Further, he examines Labour campaign materials from 1992 to 2010 and finds that the party’s issue emphasis has moved from traditional labor concerns to progressive “new left” issues.

Finally, Nicola Maggini examines to what extent a fixed, two-dimensional political space explains the European political space in the late 2010s. He tackles questions such as, how do new issues like globalization and immigration, fit into existing structures of contestation? And, are there generational differences in ideological structuring?

Sub Unit

• Division 15: European Politics and Society

Individual Presentations

• How are Working Class Candidates Different? Evidence from UK General Elections - Will Horne, Princeton University

• Value Shift: Immigration Attitudes and the Sociocultural Divide - Caroline Lancaster, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Economic Inequality and Vote Choice in Populist Times: Swedes in Context - Jeffrey Nonnemacher, University of Pittsburgh; Jennifer Fitzgerald, University of Colorado at Boulder

• New Challenges for Representative Democracy: Changing Political Space in Europe - Nicola Maggini, European University Institute

Chair

• Caroline Lancaster University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Discussant

• James Adams University of California, Davis