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 8 - Tom O'Grady. Transformation of the Left II. From coal miners to career politicians
Transformation of European Politics Podcast
49 minutes 17 seconds
5 years ago
Episode 8 - Tom O'Grady. Transformation of the Left II. From coal miners to career politicians
In this episode, I talk to Tom O’Grady who is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at University College London. We discuss his article “Careerists Versus Coal Miners: Welfare Reforms and the Substantive Representation of Social Groups in the British Labour Party” which was published in 2019 in Comparative Political Studies. https://bit.ly/3dVZ3mE
In the article, Tom investigates how politicians’ social background matters for their preferences and legislative behavior. He documents how, much like in other countries, the number of MPs with a working class background has declined in the UK over the last decades. Many of them have been replaced with career politicians. The article shows that MPs with a working class background indeed have different policy preferences and behave differently in the context of welfare reform.
We also discuss how British welfare politics have changed more generally. Tom’s new book project analyses how elite discourse on welfare issues has changed public opinion over the last decades. From this perspective, the frames introduced by New Labour already created the basis of public support for the austerity measures since 2010.
If you want to know more about Tom and his research you can follow him on Twitter under at DrTomD_OG or visit his website tomogradypolitics.wordpress.com.
I hope you enjoy the conversation
Political Science recommendation:
Srnicek/Williams (2016): "Inventing the Future
Postcapitalism and a World Without Work"
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2315-inventing-the-future?fbclid=IwAR1I8Ya9dLdEHvt-FILjAZmaAfDq969mzaLp3kxfVA96B-N0qKd6J5Pf3k0
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
