This workshop assesses in what ways social class is still central to contemporary politics and with which other inequalities it intersects. It does so before the background of changing class structures in post-industrial countries, which have altered the composition and potentially also the social and political identities, preferences and voting behaviour of social classes, especially the working class. The workshop bridges research on the supply and demand side of class politics to uncover how party strategies and voter behavior interplay.
Economic inequality is large and on the rise, but explicit mentions of the working class and class struggle seem to have become rare in political competition in post-industrial countries and beyond (Evans & Tilley 2017, Rennwald & Evans 2014). This workshop aims to assess reasons and consequences of these developments.
One key reason may be the changing composition of classes. While the gap in resources between the working class and the upper class has remained stable or even grown, who is part of these classes has shifted. Specifically, the working class has changed markedly in the past decades, with larger shares of working class people now working in the low-skilled service sectors and fewer in production (Oesch 2006). Largely as a consequence of these structural changes in the economy, the working class is now more diverse in terms of gender and ethnic composition (Ares 2017, Savage et al. 2013). Important conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions on the consequences of these shifts are still unanswered. Conceptually, who and what is the working class today? What are their political preferences and which parties compete for the different segments of the working class? How do inequalities based on race, gender, and sexuality matter for the new politics of class? The workshop aims to take the changing face of the working class into account by bringing together research on the changing and enduring elements of class politics.
Ares, Macarena (2017): A new working class? A cross-national and a longitudinal approach to class voting in post-industrial societies. PhD Thesis. European University Institute.
Evans, Geoffrey; Tilley, James (2017): The New Politics of Class. The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford University Press.
Oesch, Daniel (2006): Redrawing the Class Map. Stratification and Institutions in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan.
Rennwald, Line; Evans, Geoffrey (2014): When Supply Creates Demand. Social Democratic Party Strategies and the Evolution of Class Voting. In West European Politics 37 (5), pp. 1108–1135. DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2014.920981.
Savage, Mike; Devine, Fiona; Cunningham, Niall; Taylor, Mark; Li, Yaojun; Hjellbrekke, Johs et al. (2013): A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment. In Sociology 47 (2), pp. 219–250. DOI: 10.1177/0038038513481128.
1: Conceptually, what structural and political changes matter most (and how) for the politicization of class?
2: On the supply side, how do politicians and parties think, talk, and act regarding class?
3: On the demand side, how do citizens think, talk, and act regarding class?
4: How do supply side strategies affect voters and how do demand side changes affect party strategies?
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