In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
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In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
Episode 5 - Markus Wagner. Left-authoritarian voters
Transformation of European Politics Podcast
41 minutes 41 seconds
5 years ago
Episode 5 - Markus Wagner. Left-authoritarian voters
In this episode, I talk to Markus Wagner, who is Professor of Quantitative Party and Election Research at the University of Vienna. Our conversation will focus on his 2014 article “Left-Authoritarians and Policy Representation in Western Europe: Electoral Choice across Ideological Dimensions” The article (https://bit.ly/3fgtHJ4) is co-authored with Zoe Lefkofridi and Johanna Willmann.
In the article, the authors investigate the electoral preferences of left-authoritarian voters in Western Europe. Left-authoritarian voters are those that hold left-wing economic preferences and favor for example higher levels of redistribution but combine these preferences with more authoritarian positions on cultural issues. Because there are only very few parties that combine left-wing economic with more authoritarian positions, these voters often do not find direct representation in the party system. So they have to decide if they rather vote with their economic or cultural preferences. In their analysis, the authors find that issue salience plays a key role in determining which parties left-authoritarian voters prefer in the end.
Later in the podcast, we talk about the role that left-authoritarian voters play for the transformation of European politics more generally. Can their changing electoral preferences explain why mainstream party support has declined and other parties such as the radical right have increased their support? What are other important groups in the electorate that make us understand these changes?
Markus and I will talk about these and other questions in the next 45 minutes. For more information about Markus and his research you can follow him on twitter under “at” markuswagnerat or visit his website markuswagner.net
I hope you enjoy the conversation
Political science recommendation:
Thau, Mads. 2019. How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015. Political Studies: 67(1). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032321717744495
Transformation of European Politics Podcast
In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
