Electoral Change in the 21st Century: De-alignment or Re-alignment?

Patterns of party choice are changing across new and established democracies. The structuring effect of long term predictors of the vote (such as social class, religion and left-right) seem to weaken and short term factors (such as issues, leader evaluations and evaluation of government performance) seem to become more important. Or are we perhaps witnessing a process of re-alignment along new cleavages, such as a socio-cultural dimension that structures conflicts over immigration policies and European integration? To the extent that we witness patterns of re-alignment or de-alignment, are these general developments that affect all generations equally, or do we witness such patterns particularly among the youngest generations? These are the topics we are concerned with in this workshop. <br><br> We invite papers with a focus on electoral change, preferably distinguishing between generations. Given the aim of the workshop, priority will be given to comparative studies or studies that otherwise seek generalized explanations for new patterns of voting. We particularly welcome papers that compare between voting patterns in old and new democracies.