Solidarity Frames and the Party Political Sphere: A European Thing? (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Parties and Changing Organizations

Abstract

Inspired by Lipset and Rokkan (1967), political scientists have primarily focused on party oppositions as a derivative of historically anchored conflicts among social groups. Yet, parties are not mere social mirrors; they are also active interpreters of social context. In a globalized era they deploy conflicting frames on how solidarity may be preserved, as recent work on the politics of solidarity shows (Banting & Kymlicka, 2017). However, the role of party political agency in framing solidarity lacks an overarching framework. Thijssen (2012; 2016) has therefore proposed a Durkheimian model that takes the integrative pole of the conflict–integration dialectic seriously and distinguishes among group-based, compassionate, exchange-based and empathic frames (Thijssen, 2012; 2016). The political relevance of this solidarity framework was hitherto mainly tested in Europe, notably in Belgium – a good case study due to its fragmented party system and increasing economic and cultural openness (Thijssen & Verheyen, 2020). Content analyses of party manifestos indeed suggested that a solidarity-based deductive approach to studying partisan competition is relevant because partisan differentiation along solidarity lines is growing; Moreover, this evolution converges with similar inductive expert-based and issue-based findings. In this paper we test whether the partisan supply of solidarity frames is congruent with that of their electorates. Our preliminary results again point out that is indeed the case. In line with this, we will explore whether these European results are somehow generalizable to the context in the US.

Banting, K and Kymlicka, W (2017) The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thijssen, P (2012) From mechanical to organic solidarity, and back with Honneth beyond Durkheim. European Journal of Social Theory 15(4), 454–470.
Thijssen, P (2016) Intergenerational solidarity: the paradox of reciprocity imbalance in ageing welfare states. The British Journal of Sociology 67(4), 592–612.
Thijssen, P and Verheyen, P (2020) It’s all about solidarity stupid! How solidarity frames structure the party political sphere. British Journal of Political Science Firstview 1 september 2020.

Author

• Peter Thijssen, Universiteit Antwerpen