Stability or Decline? Class, Religion and the Vote in Germany

Abstract

This article looks at the development of the relation between social divisions and voting in Germany in the Bundestag elections after German unification. Considering the data from German electoral studies since 1994, it examines how social class impinged on support for the Social Democrats and for the post-communist PDS/Left and how church attendance and religious denomination affects the tendency to vote for Christian Democrats. It seems that it is much too early to write off the electoral relevance of social cleavages. The ‘core constituencies’ of cleavage-based parties have anything but disappeared and still show marked differences in voting patterns. In addition there are striking east–west differences in the patterns of electoral behaviour, especially regarding support for the post-communists. There is some, though not overwhelming, evidence of change in the social patterns of voting. But these changes hardly justify the elimination of the concept of social cleavages from electoral research. Instead, the results are consistent with the view that the politicisation of social cleavages depends on parties' appropriate mobilisation strategies and policies.

Notes

R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg, ‘The Not So Simple Act of Voting’, in A.W. Finifter (ed.), Political Science: The State of the Discipline II (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1993), pp.193–218, R.J. Dalton ‘Political Cleavages, Issues, and Electoral Change’, in L. Le Duc, R.G. Niemi and P. Norris (eds), Comparing Democracies 2: New Challenges in the Study of Elections and Voting (London: Sage, 2002), pp.189–209, F. Berglund, S. Holmberg and H. Schmitt, ‘Party Identification and Party Choice’, in J. Thomassen (ed.), The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp.106–24, B. Weßels, ‘Gruppenbindung und Wahlverhalten: 50 Jahre Wahlen in der Bundesrepublik’, in M. Klein, W. Jagodzinski, E. Mochmann and D. Ohr (eds), 50 Jahre Empirische Wahlforschung in Deutschland: Entwicklung, Befunde, Perspektiven, Daten (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2000), pp.129–55; and T.N. Clark and S.M. Lipset, The Breakdown of Class Politics: A Debate on Post-Industrial Stratification (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

For the German election 2005 see H. Schoen, ‘Wahlsoziologie’, in V. Kaina and A. Römmele (eds), Lehrbuch Politische Soziologie (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008).

J.W. Falter, O.W. Gabriel and H. Rattinger (eds), Wirklich ein Volk? Die politischen Orientierungen von Ost- und Westdeutschen im Vergleich (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2000); H. Rattinger, O.W. Gabriel and J.W. Falter (eds), Der gesamtdeutsche Wähler: Stabilität und Wandel des Wählerverhaltens im wiedervereinigten Deutschland (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007).

T.N. Clark and S.M. Lipset, ‘Are Social Classes Dying?’, International Sociology 6 (1991), pp.397–410; T.N. Clark, S.M. Lipset and M. Rempel, ‘The Declining Political Significance of Class’, International Sociology 8 (1993), pp.293–316; R. Dahrendorf, The Modern Social Conflict: An Essay on the Politics of Liberty (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1988).

S. Huntington, ‘Post-industrial Society: How Benign Will it be?’, Comparative Politics 6 (1974), pp.163–91.

J.H. Goldthorpe, D. Lockwood, F. Bechhofer and J. Platt, The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968); J. Myles, ‘States, Labour Markets and Life Cycles’, in R. Friedland and A.F. Robertson (eds), Beyond the Marketplace: Rethinking Economy and Society (New York: De Gruyter, 1990), pp.271–98.

S. Bartolini and P. Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilisation of European Electorates 1885–1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.221.

H. Meulemann, ‘Religiosität: Die Persistenz eines Sonderfalls’, in J.W. Van Deth (ed.), Deutschland in Europa (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004), p.61; C. Offe and S. Fuchs, ‘Schwund des Sozialkapitals? Der Fall Deutschland’, in R.D. Putnam (ed.), Gesellschaft und Gemeinsinn: Sozialkapital im internationalen Vergleich (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2001), pp.433–34; G.K. Roberts, ‘The Ever-shallower Cleavage. Religions and Electoral Politics in Germany’, in D. Broughton and H.M. ten Napel (eds), Religion and Mass Electoral Behaviour in Europe (London: Routledge, 2000), p.64.

S. Roßteutscher, Religion, Konfession, Demokratie. Eine international vergleichende Studie zur Natur religiöser Märkte und der demokratischen Rolle religiöser Zivilgesellschaften (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009).

O. Blaschke (ed.), Konfessionen im Konflikt: Deutschland zwischen 1800 und 1970, ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2002).

W. Jagodzinski and K. Dobbelaere, ‘Der Wandel kirchlicher Religiosität in Westeuropa’, in J. Bergmann, A. Hahn and T. Luckmann (eds), Religion und Kultur, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 33/Special Issue (1993), pp.82–3.

Roßteutscher, Religion, Konfession, Demokratie.

F.U. Pappi, ‘Die konfessionell-religiöse Konfliktlinie in der deutschen Wählerschaft: Entstehung, Stabilität und Wandel’, in D. Oberndörfer, H. Rattinger and K. Schmitt (eds), Wirtschaftlicher Wandel, Religiöser Wandel und Wertwandel (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1985), pp.263–90, C. Wolf, ‘Konfessionelle versus religiöse Konfliktlinie in der deutschen Wählerschaft’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 37 (1996), pp.713–34, R. Inglehart and W.E. Baker, ‘Modernization, Cultural Change and the Persistence of Traditional Values’, Mexican Sociological Review 65 (2000), pp.19–51; J. Jacobs, ‘Die konfessionell-religiöse Spannungslinie am Beispiel der Bundestagswahlen 1994 und 1998’, in D. Pollack and G. Pickel (eds), Religiöser und kirchlicher Wandel in Ostdeutschland 1989–1999 (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2000), pp.165–85. But see S. Roßteutscher, ‘CDU-Wahl 2005: Katholiken, Kirchgänger und eine protestantische Spitzenkandidatin aus dem Osten’, in F. Brettschneider, O. Niedermayer and B. Wessels (eds), Die Bundestagswahl 2005: Analysen des Wahlkampfes und der Wahlergebnisse (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), pp.321–47 for evidence concerning the revival of the old denominational divide.

Cf. R. Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties Without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and R. Lachat, A Heterogeneous Electorate: Political Sophistication, Predisposition Strength, and the Voting Decision Process (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007).

R. Geißler, Die Sozialstruktur Deutschlands: Ein Studienbuch zur sozialstrukturellen Entwicklung im geteilten und vereinten Deutschland (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992), pp.227 ff.

H. Schoen, ‘Soziologische Ansätze in der empirischen Wahlforschung’, in J.W. Falter and H. Schoen (eds), Handbuch Wahlforschung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005), p.166.

K. Neller and S.I. Thaidigsmann, ‘Wer wählt die PDS? Ein Vergleich von Stamm- und Wechselwählern bei den Bundestagswahlen 1994–2002’, in F. Brettschneider, J.W. van Deth and E. Roller (eds), Die Bundestagswahl 2002: Analysen der Wahlergebnisse und des Wahlkampfs (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2002), pp.185–218.

B. Weßels, ‘Re-Mobilisierung, “Floating” oder Abwanderung? Wechselwähler 2002 und 2005 im Vergleich’, in Brettschneider et al. (eds), Die Bundestagswahl 2005, pp.395–417, R. Schmitt-Beck and T. Faas, ‘The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2005 German General Election’, German Politics 15 (2006), pp.393–419; F.U. Pappi, A. Herzog and R. Schmitt, ‘Koalitionssignale und die Kombination von Erst- und Zweitstimme bei den Bundestagswahlen 1953 bis 2005’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 37 (2006), pp.493–513.

R. Hilmer, ‘Bundestagswahl 2009: Ein Wechsel auf Raten’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 41/1 (2010), pp.147–80.

M. Elff, ‘Social Structure and Electoral Behavior in Comparative Perspective: The Decline of Social Cleavages in Western Europe Revisited’, Perspectives on Politics 5 (2007), pp.277–94, M. Elff, ‘Social Divisions, Party Positions, and Electoral Behaviour’, Electoral Studies 28 (2009), pp.297–308.

J.E. Lane and S. Ersson, ‘Parties and Voters: What Creates the Ties?’, Scandinavian Political Studies 20 (1997), pp.179–96.

The concept of the service class was introduced into sociology by R. Erikson, J.H. Goldthorpe and L. Portocarero, ‘Intergenerational Class Mobility in Three Western European Societies: England, France and Sweden’, British Journal of Sociology 30 (1979), pp.413–39 and extensively used for the analysis of social mobility by R. Erikson and J.H. Goldthorpe, The Constant Flux (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

See Roßteutscher, ‘CDU-Wahl 2005’, and Elff, ‘Social Structure and Electoral Behavior’, for the religious cleavage and G. Evans, ‘The Continued Significance of Class Voting’, Annual Review of Political Science 3 (2000), pp.401–17, and Elff, ‘Social Structure and Electoral Behavior’, for the socio-economic cleavage. For a comparative analysis that takes into account the parties' strategies see Elff, ‘Social Divisions, Party Positions, and Electoral Behaviour’.

The principal investigators of these election studies do not bear any responsibility for the analysis conducted here. All errors are ours.

Erikson and Goldthorpe, The Constant Flux; W. Müller, ‘Klassenstruktur und Parteiensystem’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 50 (1998), pp.3–46; Elff, ‘Social Structure and Electoral Behavior’.

In Germany the distinction between ‘Arbeiter’ (‘blue-collar’ workers) and ‘Angestellten’ (‘white-collar’ employees) is more than just a distinction in terms of chances on the labour market and social status. The distinction usually also implies different forms of employment contracts. Blue-collar workers receive a wage (‘Lohn’) usually paid in arrears, often calculated per hour worked, whereas white-collar employees receive a salary calculated as a monthly compensation often paid in advance or in the middle of the month. Until 2005 blue-collar workers and white-collar employees were even covered by different tiers of the German compulsory public pensions system (‘gesetzliche Rentenversicherung’). ‘Industriemeister’ and ‘Werkmeister’ (foremen) are commonly the highest-level factory-floor occupations and in many class schemata were categorised as manual working class. In Germany these are usually wage-labour occupations but some ‘Industriemeister’/‘Werkmeister’ hold a salaried employment contract, hence the awkward category of ‘salaried foremen’.

G. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp.26–34, 105–38.

A structural diversification within the group of the self-employed might explain this curious finding. Recently, changes in German labour market laws have encouraged individuals dependent on unemployment benefits to start careers as self-employed persons. However, these ‘new’ self-employees very often experience a highly precarious income situation, keeping them largely dependent on state subsidies. As ‘pseudo’ self-employed or de facto unemployed individuals, their preference for the post-communist party is no longer a surprise. Unfortunately, case numbers are too low to permit an empirical verification of such an explanation.

Pappi, ‘Die konfessionell-religiöse Konfliktlinie in der deutschen Wählerschaft’; Wolf, ‘Konfessionelle versus religiöse Konfliktlinie in der deutschen Wählerschaft’; Inglehart and Baker, ‘Modernization, Cultural Change and the Persistence of Traditional Values’; Jacobs, ‘Die konfessionell-religiöse Spannungslinie’.

See also M. Elff, ‘Neue Mitte oder alte Lager? Welche Rolle spielen sozioökonomische Konfliktlinien für das Wahlergebnis von 1998?’, in F. Brettschneider, J.W. van Deth and E. Roller (eds), Die Republik auf dem Weg zur Normalität? Wahlverhalten und politische Einstellungen nach acht Jahren Einheit (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2000), pp.67–92.

K. Schmitt, ‘Sozialstruktur und Wählerverhalten’, in O.W. Gabriel (ed.), Politische Orientierungen und Verhaltensweisen im vereinigten Deutschland (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1997), pp.425–48.

See Elff, ‘Social Structure and Electoral Behavior’.

Lane and Ersson, ‘Parties and Voters: What Creates the Ties?’; Dalton ‘Political Cleavages, Issues, and Electoral Change’.

Elff, ‘Social Divisions, Party Positions, and Electoral Behaviour’.