Vincenzo Emanuele

5/ @vincenzoemanuele.bsky.social & Bruno Marino test Lipset & Rokkan’s famous freezing hypothesis w fresh data, finding some conditions for freezing L&R hypothesize are *not* associated with cleavage structuring and other societal/institutional factors were overlooked.

bsky.app/profile/vinc...

@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️

NEWCOMING Four main goals mapping the conflicts emerging from the economic, social, and cultural transformations of the age of globalization identifying the economic, social, and cultural groups emerging from.....

This is the first output of the NEWCOMING project— newcomingproject.weebly.com . We are indebted to our project’s colleagues who collaborated in designing our original survey data. Happy to discuss the paper with anyone working on cleavages, party systems, or identity politics in Europe!

So what?
👉 Parties face a fragmented society shaped by multiple cleavages.
👉 Representation is harder.
👉 Voter alienation may grow if parties can’t bridge diverging social groups.
A challenge for European democracy in the 2020s and beyond.

🔍 Our method matters too.
We’re the first to operationalise Bartolini & Mair’s cleavage theory using survey data, covering structure, identity, and party representation.
Check out the design if you’re working on cleavages or identities!

The conflict between skilled vs. unskilled workers?
It qualifies as a cleavage — but a separate one.
We find little overlap with cultural conflicts.
So, there’s no unified “transnational/globalisation cleavage” on the demand side.

💡 On the “new” side:
• Ethnonationalism vs. Cosmopolitanism
• Traditional values vs. LGBTQ+ rights
• Economy vs. Environment
These 3 overlap socially and politically — and form a multidimensional GAL/TAN cleavage.

Which cleavages are most structured?
💥 The class cleavage remains very strong.
🌱 The GAL/TAN cleavage (green/alternative/libertarian vs. traditional/authoritarian/nationalist) is also robust.
But not all old (or new) conflicts make the cut.

Key findings:
❌ We reject the idea that (all) old cleavages have vanished.
❌ We also reject the notion of a single globalisation cleavage.
✅ Western Europe is shaped by multiple, distinct cleavages — a mosaic rather than a monolith.

We stick to a classic definition:
A cleavage must meet 3 criteria:
1️. Socio-structural
2️. Normative (Shared group identity)
3️. Organisational (Having political representation)
No cherry-picking. We assess all conflicts using the same standards. 🔍

We designed an original survey across 7 Western European countries 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇮🇹🇳🇱🇪🇸🇸🇪🇬🇧 to evaluate 8 socio-political conflicts, both “old” (Rokkanian) and “new” (globalisation-related).
And we asked:
Which of these are really cleavages?

Cleavage theory is alive and well — but the debate is split:
📉 Some say old cleavages (like class) are in decline.
🌍 Others point to a new “globalisation” cleavage.
But few studies test both within the same framework. We do.

🧵 Posting also here our new article out in JEPP (Open Acess)!
With Mirko Crulli, we explore the structure of political cleavages in Western Europe — bringing Rokkan’s classic theory into the 21st century.
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Here are the main takeaways 👇

We show that left parties have historically reduced most forms of #inequality but their equalizing effect has decreased over time and has become not significant since the 1980s.

📣Just issued on @poppublicsphere.bsky.social our article analyzing 🔴left #parties in #government and the reduction of inequalities 📉. @fedetrastulli.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Implication: political science must rethink how it classifies party systems. Before asking which type of system exists, we must first ask: is there a system at all?

The big picture: the old labels (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar) capture only fleeting snapshots. In many countries, instability itself has become the rule. In those contexts, classifications are useless for long-term accounts.

Results indicate that many systems have become ‘non-systems,’ with fluctuating and unstable party poles.

We define party systems based on the number and composition of relevant political poles (governing alternatives) and, through a long-term analysis of Western Europe (20 countries since 1945), assess their degree of systemness.

With Alessandro Chiaramonte and Marco Improta, we ask whether party system #classifications are still useful or by now irrelevant as most party systems have been losing their 'systemness'.

📣New #openaccess publication on Western European #party systems within the #Sartori symposium on IPSR.
lc.cx/b_xy8Y
A short 🧵👇

Thanks! And I cannot agree more on the admiration for the classics!

What does this mean for comparative politics?
We urge caution in idealizing the “Golden Age” of cleavages & stable party systems. Our data shows the 1920–1967 period was not as frozen as often claimed.
📩 Comments welcome!

We also identify previously overlooked factors:
📚 Education
🤝 Civil society strength
📊 Electoral system disproportionality
🧩 Party system fragmentation
These shape the contexts in which cleavages consolidate — or fail to.

Some Hps are confirmed, others not.
✅ Cultural segmentation explains centre-periphery structuring ✅ Catholicism shapes religious cleavage ✅ Urbanisation matters for the rural one
But Some classic assumptions don’t hold❌ Farm size isn’t a key predictor of rural cleavage structuring

Our key findings challenge the conventional wisdom.
The “freezing” of cleavages between the 1920s and 1960s?
🧊 Not quite.
Only the centre-periphery cleavage shows stability — and at very low levels.
The others show ups and downs. Class cleavage becomes more and more structured over time.

We conceptualize cleavage electoral structuring as a dynamic process with three possible stages:
❌ Absent
🔄 Unstructured
✅ Structured
Structuring = strong & stable electoral support for cleavage bloc parties.

Our article revisits one of the most influential political science theories: Lipset & Rokkan’s model of social cleavages and their famous “freezing hypothesis”.
We move beyond anecdotal claims and test their assumptions using quantitative data.

🎯New publication out in @wepsocial.bsky.social
'Lipset and Rokkan meet data': a 🧵on our study (with Bruno Marino) on the electoral structuring of traditional cleavages (1870–1967) across 17 Western European countries 👇

Read the full article (open access):
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....