Cleavages, Actors, and Polarisation in Old and New Democracies

This paper presents a conceptual reflection on the cleavage approach that is geared (i) to the question how the Rokkanian framework can be fruitfully applied to newer democracies, and (ii) how social and political polarization forge lasting political divisions. Cleavages outside Western Europe have often proven more political than sociological in nature. This, in turn, would seem to make them more susceptible to elite manipulation. This does not imply, however, that the divides represented in the party systems of new democracies are uniformly less anchored in social structure. Nor does it mean that mass-elite discrepancy in political divisions is necessarily stronger in new democracies. Rather, newer party systems simply exhibit more variance in both respects. This variance, in turn, is a conceptual advantage: It means that studying cleavage formation in new democracies may lead to new conclusions regarding the role of elite agency more generally. In particular, I point to the role of elite polarization in keeping cleavages alive and in structuring the relative salience of old and new cleavages. Ultimately, such an agency-based approach can make the cleavage concept better equipped to study how new political and social divisions are transforming party systems and voter alignments in Western Europe and North America.