Social Class and Voting:
A Multi-Level Analysis of Individual
And Constituency Differences
By Robert Andersen and Anthony Heath
This paper extends previous work on the changing importance of
individual and contextual social class in Britain. We adopt a multilevel
framework for analysis, linking surveys from the 1964-97 British Election
Studies with Census data on the social class composition of constituencies. The
goal of the paper is to test whether, net of individual social class effects,
the social class composition of the constituency in which the voter lives has
declined in importance over time. We found that contextual class effects were
consistently significant and fairly constant throughout the period under study.
We also find a gradual increase in the amount of constituency variation in
vote. Although the proportion of this variation explained by contextual and
individual social class has remained fairly constant for Conservative vote, it
has decreased for Labour vote. Ultimately, we find evidence of a decline in
class voting, but no evidence of a growth in the individualism of voters.
Introduction
There has been considerable interest in the changing
pattern of class voting in western democracies (see, for example, the volume
edited by Evans, 1999). A number of writers argue that there has been a
long-term process of ‘class dealignment’ with social classes becoming
increasingly similar in their voting patterns (Sarlvik and Crewe, 1983; Franklin,
1985a, 1985b; Clark and Lipset, 1991; Nieuwbeerta and De Graaf, 1999). Others
have argued that the pattern is merely one of “trendless fluctuation” (Heath et
al., 1985, 1991; Weakliem, 1989; see also Hout et al.,1993). The most recent research has shown that class
voting fell to a low level in Great Britain in 1997 when the Labour Party moved
towards the centre of the political spectrum (Evans et al., 1999; Heath et
al., 2001). Despite debate over whether observed changes in class voting
are generated by long-run social processes or by short-term political events,
there is general agreement that class voting still persists to some degree in
Britain.
Although interest in the effects of the social
milieu on voting is not new (see, for example, Butler and Stokes, 1974;
Rasmussen, 1973; Miller 1977; Bodman, 1983; Kelley and McAllister, 1985;
Huckfeldt and Sprague, 1987; MacKuen and Brown, 1987; Harrop et al., 1992;
Pattie and Johnston, 1999; Johnston et. al, 2000), it has rarely been integrated
within the study of class voting. Most
studies have taken an individualistic approach to the question of trends in
class voting, looking at the changing relationship between an individual’s
class membership and his or her vote. However, the sociological theories upon
which the basic theory of social cleavages rests emphasize the role of social processes,
in particular the development of class-based communities which generatesocial
pressures on individuals to support a particular party (Berelson et al., 1954;
Lipset and Rokkan, 1967; Parkin 1967; Butler and Stokes 1974). These theories
assume that the individual voting decision is not simply a consequence of the
individual’s own class characteristics but is also dependent on the class positions
of the people with whom that individual associates.
According to Hauser (1974) contextual effects are
systematic differences in individual behaviour across environments that cannot
be accounted for by explanations in terms of individual characteristics. In
other words, “a contextual effect is any effect on individual behaviour that
arises due to social interaction within an environment” (Huckfeldt and Sprague,
1995, 11). The basic premise of how this applies to class relations is well
outlined by Miller (1977):
If Mr A and Mr B have similar social
characteristics but Mr A lives in an area where the middle class form twice as
large a fraction of the local population as in the area where Mr B lives, then
Mr A is likely to have more middle-class contacts than Mr B even if he is
unlikely to have twice as many. Thus Mr A’s contact group will be biased
towards the middle class compared with Mr B’s contact group.
Miller argues that contextual effects are generally
consensual whether or not people’s social contacts are similar to themselves in
their social class positions. That is to say, people will tend to be influenced
towards political agreement with their social contacts. Following this argument, we would expect to
find tendencies towards class voting to be reinforced among voters who
regularly associate with others from the same social class. On the other hand,
we would expect to find the tendency towards class voting to beundermined among
voters who frequently interact with people from other social classes since the
interaction will tend to move them towards agreement with the other social classes
(cf Goldthorpe et al., 1968). Simply put, the more that people interact with members
of other social classes, the weaker we expect class voting to be.
Przeworski and Soares (1971) also argue that the
contextual effects are consensual on the working class. They differ from
Miller, however, in arguing that, under certain circumstances, contextual
effects may be reactive on other classes. For example, areas with a high
proportion of working class inhabitants may influence people in other classes to
become more conscious of their own class position and interests and this in
turn may lead to voting against left-leaning parties. This suggests that there will be an
interaction between individual class, contextual social class, and voting
behaviour; that is, the influence of contextual social class will differ in the
case of middle-class and of working-class individuals.
It is plausible that locally-based communities may
be strongest for the working class (see, for example, Parkin, 1967).
Professional and managerial careers typically involve greater geographical
mobility and lead to the development of looser-knit and geographically
wider-ranging social networks than do manual careers. Such looser networks may
well be less effective in developing strong community sanctions in favour of a
particular party, even if the network is composed of people from the same
social class. If working class people are indeed involved in denser social
networks, then this might tend to magnify the role of social environment on
their voting behaviour, while the looser networks of the middle class might
tend to permit a more individualistic pattern of voting behaviour. ..........
