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Party Dealignment, Multiconflictual Party Systems and Transformation of Cleavages:Theoretical Considerations

Publication date: 15.11.2024

Teoria Polityki, 2024, Nr 10/Special Issue, pp. 11-40

https://doi.org/10.4467/25440845TP.24.001.20593

Authors

,
Ladislav Cabada
Metropolitan University Prague
, Czech Republic
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743 Orcid
All publications →
Jakub Charvát
Metropolitan University Prague
, Czech Republic
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743 Orcid
All publications →

Titles

Party Dealignment, Multiconflictual Party Systems and Transformation of Cleavages:Theoretical Considerations

Abstract

Political partisanship in Europe has undergone a significant and multifaceted transformation in recent decades. The importance of long-term party predispositions for electoral choice and cleavage-based appeals has been declining in last decades,  esulting, inter alia, in the growing importance of issue-based voting, but also in increasing party system fragmentation and political polarisation. This paper provides a systematic and theory-grounded discussion on the recent development of identities and political cleavages, and the consequences of this development on political polarisation and party politics, specifically stressing political trust as the measure strongly related with the political polarisation and thus also with the (post)modern party politics. To this point, the paper reflects the family of neo-modernization theories prioritizing economic/rational choice nature of polarisation. These theories are framed in response to globalization, economic and cultural change, the collapse of communism, and decline of labour-centred left politics, and explicitly link the changes in the structure of society in Western democracies with cultural change, i.e. values, and reflect the fundamental change associated with the weakening of the link between the working class and left-wing politics. The paper concludes that the process under study has been rather evolutionary over the last seventy years, with psychology based on both (dis)trust between members of different social groups and distrust in political institutions plays a significant role in the polarisation of contemporary societies.

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Information

Information: Teoria Polityki, 2024, Nr 10/Special Issue, pp. 11-40

Article type: Original article

Authors

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743

Ladislav Cabada
Metropolitan University Prague
, Czech Republic
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743 Orcid
All publications →

Metropolitan University Prague
Czech Republic

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743

Jakub Charvát
Metropolitan University Prague
, Czech Republic
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8212-1743 Orcid
All publications →

Metropolitan University Prague
Czech Republic

Published at: 15.11.2024

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY  licence icon

Article financing:

This article has been prepared with the support of the TRUEDEM “Trust in European Democracies” research project funded under the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation program (grant agreement No 101095237). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Horizon research and innovation program. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Percentage share of authors:

Ladislav Cabada (Author) - 50%
Jakub Charvát (Author) - 50%

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English