Class, the stratification order and party identification

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 237-258

  Prandy, Kenneth ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034403841     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123400000119     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Bo Särlvik, and Ivor Crewe, A Decade of Dealignment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); David Robertson, Class and the British Electorate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Mark N. Franklin, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Richard Rose and Ian McAlister, Voters Begin to Choose: From Closed Class to Open Elections in Britain (London: Sage, 1986).
2. Bo Särlvik, and Ivor Crewe, A Decade of Dealignment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); David Robertson, Class and the British Electorate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Mark N. Franklin, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Richard Rose and Ian McAlister, Voters Begin to Choose: From Closed Class to Open Elections in Britain (London: Sage, 1986).
3. Bo Särlvik, and Ivor Crewe, A Decade of Dealignment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); David Robertson, Class and the British Electorate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Mark N. Franklin, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Richard Rose and Ian McAlister, Voters Begin to Choose: From Closed Class to Open Elections in Britain (London: Sage, 1986).
4. Bo Särlvik, and Ivor Crewe, A Decade of Dealignment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); David Robertson, Class and the British Electorate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Mark N. Franklin, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Richard Rose and Ian McAlister, Voters Begin to Choose: From Closed Class to Open Elections in Britain (London: Sage, 1986).
5. Anthony Heath, John Curtice, Roger Jowell, Geoff Evans, Julia Field and Sharon Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change: The British Voter, 1964-1987 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), p. 63. It is worth noting that in much the same period as 'class dealignment' was seen as taking place in voting, medical sociologists were noting the increase in the 'class gradient' in mortality between 1961 and 1981. I should also point out that 'the sociological camp' by no means includes all sociologists.
6. Heath et al., Understanding Political Change, p. 81.
7. Ivor Crewe, 'On the Death and Resurrection of Class Voting: Some Comments on How Britain Votes', Political Studies, 34 (1986), 620-38, p. 634.
8. David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 74.
9. David Rose, ESRC Review of OPCS Social Classifications, Report on Phase 1 (Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council, 1995).
10. Robertson, Class and the British Electorate.
11. Robertson compares his resultant groupings to the Goldthorpe basic three-class schema described below, arguing that they are roughly comparable.
12. Butler and Stokes, Political Change in Britain, p. 77.
13. Robertson, Class and the British Electorate, p. 120.
14. Robertson, Class and the British Electorate, p. 122.
15. John H. Goldthorpe, 'Class Analysis and the Reorientation of Class Theory: The Case of Persisting Differentials in Educational Attainment', British Journal of Sociology, 47 (1996), 481-505, p. 486.
16. Crewe protests at their retention of this 'sociologically meaningless, but ideologically laden term': Crewe, 'On the Death and Resurrection of Class Voting', p. 624, fn. 8.
17. For a recent example of an attempt to validate the Goldthorpe schema, see Geoff Evans, 'Putting Men and Women into Classes: An Assessment of the Cross-Sex Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema', Sociology, 30 (1996), 209-34; also, Kenneth Prandy and Robert M. Blackburn, 'Putting Men and Women into Classes: But Is That Where They Belong? A Comment on Evans', Sociology, 31 (1997), 143-52.
18. For a recent example of an attempt to validate the Goldthorpe schema, see Geoff Evans, 'Putting Men and Women into Classes: An Assessment of the Cross-Sex Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema', Sociology, 30 (1996), 209-34; also, Kenneth Prandy and Robert M. Blackburn, 'Putting Men and Women into Classes: But Is That Where They Belong? A Comment on Evans', Sociology, 31 (1997), 143-52.
19. Heath et al., Understanding Political Change, p. 66. The importance of self-employment had hardly gone unnoticed previously: see, for example, Bo Särlvik and Ivor Crewe, Decade of Dealignment: The Conservative Victory of 1979 and Electoral Trends in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Table 3.8, p. 94.
20. Heath et al., Understanding Political Change, p. 66. The importance of self-employment had hardly gone unnoticed previously: see, for example, Bo Särlvik and Ivor Crewe, Decade of Dealignment: The Conservative Victory of 1979 and Electoral Trends in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Table 3.8, p. 94.
21. Roger Penn, 'The Nuffield Class Categorisation', Sociology, 15 (1981), 265-71.
22. Heath et al., Understanding Political Change, p. 67.
23. Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice, How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon, 1985), p. 13.
24. Goldthorpe, 'Class Analysis and the Reorientation of Class Theory', p. 486.
25. John H. Goldthorpe, 'Class and Politics in Advanced Industrial Societies', in David J. Lee and Bryan S. Turner, eds, Conflicts About Class Debating Inequality in Late Industrialism (London: Longman, 1996), pp. 196-208 at p. 201.
26. Robertson (Class and the British Electorate) had previously noted the similarity between his own and the Goldthorpe schema. However, he is very explicit in using differences in political behaviour to develop his social class groupings - a procedure that some might find questionable as a basis for establishing a relationship between the two.
27. Kenneth Prandy, 'Class and Continuity in the Analysis of Social Mobility', Sociological Review, 46 (1998), 340-64. A significant amount of the transmission of advantage from fathers to sons, discernible when using the Cambridge Scale, is missed by the Goldthorpe class schema. Similar arguments can be made in relation to health inequalities (see Kenneth Prandy, 'Class, Stratification and Inequalities in Health: A Comparison of the Registrar-General's Social Classes and the Cambridge Scale', Sociology of Health and Illness, 20 (1999), 119-40.
28. Kenneth Prandy, 'Class and Continuity in the Analysis of Social Mobility', Sociological Review, 46 (1998), 340-64. A significant amount of the transmission of advantage from fathers to sons, discernible when using the Cambridge Scale, is missed by the Goldthorpe class schema. Similar arguments can be made in relation to health inequalities (see Kenneth Prandy, 'Class, Stratification and Inequalities in Health: A Comparison of the Registrar-General's Social Classes and the Cambridge Scale', Sociology of Health and Illness, 20 (1999), 119-40.
29. The value of Q, using the Cambridge Scale score alone is 0.64, as against 0.59 using the full Goldthorpe class schema. Combining both, the latter adds nothing to the value of Q (to three decimal places).
30. See John Bartle, 'Left-Right Position Matters, but Does Social Class? Causal Models of the 1992 British General Election', British Journal of Political Science, 28 (1998), 501-29, for a useful discussion of the issue of whether party identification represents a 'stable predisposition' in the British context. Bartle argues that it is preferable not to use those cases where respondents have to be prompted to name the party they feel closest to and some doubts have also been raised about the contamination of party identification by actual vote in British election studies (see Anthony Heath and Roy Pierce, 'It Was Party Identification All Along: Question Order Effects on Reports of Party Identification in Britain', Electoral Studies, 11 (1992), 93-105). It is most unlikely that either of these would have any effect on the kinds of comparisons being made in this article.
31. See John Bartle, 'Left-Right Position Matters, but Does Social Class? Causal Models of the 1992 British General Election', British Journal of Political Science, 28 (1998), 501-29, for a useful discussion of the issue of whether party identification represents a 'stable predisposition' in the British context. Bartle argues that it is preferable not to use those cases where respondents have to be prompted to name the party they feel closest to and some doubts have also been raised about the contamination of party identification by actual vote in British election studies (see Anthony Heath and Roy Pierce, 'It Was Party Identification All Along: Question Order Effects on Reports of Party Identification in Britain', Electoral Studies, 11 (1992), 93-105). It is most unlikely that either of these would have any effect on the kinds of comparisons being made in this article.
32. Yule's Q is equivalent to gamma for a 2 × 2 cross-tabulation. It can be defined (see James A. Davis, Elementary Survey Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971) as: the proportion of correct predictions minus chance level all divided by chance level. Although the percentage of correct predictions is an intuitively appealing indicator, random allocation alone gives at least a 50 per cent success rate, greater if one of the categories is known to be larger. In a situation of random allocation, though, Q is equal to zero. Its maximum value, a perfect relationship, is ± 1.
33. Crewe, 'On the Death and Resurrection of Class Voting'; Patrick Dunleavy, 'Class Dealignment in Britain Revisited', West European Politics, 10 (1987), 400-19.
34. Crewe, 'On the Death and Resurrection of Class Voting'; Patrick Dunleavy, 'Class Dealignment in Britain Revisited', West European Politics, 10 (1987), 400-19.
35. Ivor Crewe, 'The Electorate: Partisan Dealignment Ten Years On', West European Politics, 6 (1983), 183-215, Table 5, p. 194.
36. Heath et al., How Britain Votes, Table 3.2, pp. 32-3.
37. Dunleavy, 'Class Dealignment in Britain Revisited'.
38. Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe, The Constant Flux (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 46, fn.
39. Bryan S. Turner, 'Capitalism, Classes and Citizenship', in Lee and Turner, Conflicts about Class, pp. 254-61, at p. 257.
40. John H. Goldthorpe and Gordon Marshall, 'The Promising Future of Class Analysis', in Lee and Turner, Conflicts about Class, pp. 98-109.
41. Jon Gubbay, 'A Marxist Critique of Weberian Class Analyses', Sociology, 31 (1997), 73-89, p. 85.
42. Patrick Dunleavy, 'The Political Implications of Sectoral Cleavages and the Growth of State Employment: Part 1, the Analysis of Production Cleavages', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 364-83, 'Part 2, Cleavage Structures and Political Alignment', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 527-49; J. MacAdams, 'Testing the Theory of the New Class', Sociological Quarterly, 28 (1987), 23-49.
43. Patrick Dunleavy, 'The Political Implications of Sectoral Cleavages and the Growth of State Employment: Part 1, the Analysis of Production Cleavages', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 364-83, 'Part 2, Cleavage Structures and Political Alignment', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 527-49; J. MacAdams, 'Testing the Theory of the New Class', Sociological Quarterly, 28 (1987), 23-49.
44. Patrick Dunleavy, 'The Political Implications of Sectoral Cleavages and the Growth of State Employment: Part 1, the Analysis of Production Cleavages', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 364-83, 'Part 2, Cleavage Structures and Political Alignment', Political Studies, 27 (1980), 527-49; J. MacAdams, 'Testing the Theory of the New Class', Sociological Quarterly, 28 (1987), 23-49.
45. Heath et al. How Britain Votes; Heath et al., Understanding Political Change.
46. Heath et al. How Britain Votes; Heath et al., Understanding Political Change.
47. M. Savage, 'Making Sense of Middle-Class Politics: A Secondary Analysis of the 1987 British Election Survey', Sociological Review, 39 (1991), 26-54.
48. Mike Savage, James Barlow, Peter Dickens and Tony Fielding, Property, Bureaucracy and Culture: Middle Class Formation in Contemporary Britain (London: Routledge, 1992).
49. See Table 9.3 (Savage et al., Property, Bureaucracy and Culture, p. 196). The values of Q for the cross-tabulation of Managers and Professional against Labour and Conservative voting are: private sector, 0.141; public sector, 0.063; nationalized industries, 0.455. This last table, though, has only forty-three cases, and in any event the more interesting differences involve the level of Alliance voting.
50. Peter Saunders, A Nation of Home Owners (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990). However, as Bartle points out, a factor such as form of housing tenure, which he groups under lifestyle characteristics, has to be viewed within a broader causal structure.
51. David McCrone and Brian Elliott, Property and Power in a City: The Sociological Significance of Landlordism (London: Macmillan, 1989).