Cleavages Research: A Critical Appraisal

Cleavage research - Empirical evidence

US scholars - individual is determinant, rational choice tradition of electoral research
European scholars - individuals are subject to impersonal forces often associated with life chances established at birth. (Contextual determinant).

Sociologist - social processes

Political scientist - political outcomes

Mistakes of scholars

1. Stretch the theoretical underpinnings of the social group basis of political life
2. Slide from one argument to another by suggestive use of words
3. Employ words with multiple meanings
4. Engage in questionable methodological practiques in order to suggest stronger linkages than the empirical findings warrant.

Therefore, it is a subfield chracterises by: 

1. Weak theorising
2. Loose logic
3. Shaky methodology

Social cleavage requirements (Lipset and Rokkan) - Weak theorising

1. Political consequences
2. Objective distinction between the itnerests of those on different sides of a cleave divide
3. Recognition of the importance of this dsitinction by those affected
4. Political expression for the different itnerests concerned (Votes for different parties ebcause theya re dedicated to defending the interests of different groups

Other weak theorising occurs in regard to teh manner in which cleavages are supposed to ahve lost tehir power to structure partisanship

Loose logic -. It is no necessary retain the same meaning for cleavage politics as the meaning employed by Lipset and Rokkan and other scholars. Cleavage concept can be employed for identifying distinctions of a more long-standing nature. If the political differences are long-standing for sociological reasons then we need to know what those reasons are.  It is not possible to have things both ways between different scholars, not different theoretical explanations. For example, due to learned behaviour a person can keep having some political ideas about one topic, when this topic already ceased, but still have these ideas. This is not a cleavage politic, it comes for a different mechanism, well udnerstood in political science. If cleavages give issues longevity in a different way than paty identification does, this would be important to know.

Shaky methodology, those who failt to employ cutting-edge research methods lose the opportunity to elaborate their theorising in ways that could be enormously fruitful. We would not be dealing with an effect unless it was relevant and ifnores the fact that we might be concerned with changes in relevance over time. There are relevant differences about the way in which we can expect cleavages of any kind to manifest themselves and serves as test variables to help distinguish between different explanations for the same phenomenon, or to explain away apparent differences in the effects of some phenomenon in different countries.



                       

Cleavage Research: A critical Appraisal

Mark N. Franklin

West European Politics

33:3, 648-658