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Cross-Cutting Cleavages and Social Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Robert E. Goodin
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Extract

Cross-cutting cleavages do seem to help moderate social conflict.1 This can be explained in either of two ways. One argument focuses on the logic of electoral competition. Where parties must appeal to an electorate with diverse tastes along many dimensions, politicians must take moderate positions (defined as near the median voter) in most dimensions of cleavage if they are to win. A socialist party which draws its support from both Protestants and Catholics cannot take extreme positions on the religious question without alienating potential supporters and jeopardizing its electoral chances.2

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 1975 , pp. 516 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 See Ross, Edward Alsworth, The Principles of Sociology (New York: Century Co., 1920), pp. 164–5Google Scholar; Simmel, Georg, Conflict and the Web of Group-Affiliations, trans. Wolff, K. H. and Bendix, R. (New York: Free Press, 1955)Google Scholar; Coser, Lewis A., The Functions of Social Conflict (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), pp. 72–81Google Scholar; Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960)Google Scholar; and Rae, Douglas W. and Taylor, Michael, The Analysis of Political Cleavages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, Chap. 4.

2 See James Madison, The Federalist, Number 10, further developed by Dahl, Robert A. in A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 104–5Google Scholar and Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar Similar themes are found in Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1960), pp. 157–67Google Scholar; Kornhauser, , Politics of Mass Society, pp. 80–1Google Scholar; and Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (London: Heinemann, 1960), p. 31.Google Scholar The fullest development is Brian Barry, Interests, Conflicts and Outcomes (mimeo.), which builds on the ‘city block’ model of Rae, Douglas and Taylor, Michael, ‘Decision Rules and Policy Outcomes’, British Journal of Political Science, I (1971), 71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 These are the conclusions of Lipset, , Political Man, pp. 88, 203–16Google Scholar and Lane, Robert E., Political Life (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1959), pp. 197–203Google Scholar on the basis of a long series of voting studies including: Tingsten, Herbert, Political Behavior (London: King, 1937);Google ScholarBerelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Gaudet, Hazel, The People's Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944);Google ScholarBerelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Mcphee, William N., Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954);Google Scholar and Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar

4 Dahrendorf, Ralf, ‘Homo Sociologies’, Essays in the Theory of Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 37.Google Scholar

5 How such expectations come to be formulated is problematic. Unless some member of the group is dictatorial in the sense used by Arrow, Kenneth in Social Choice and Individual Value (New York: Wiley, 1963)Google Scholar rational choice models would predict a serious problem of collective choice. Empirical evidence of the lack of role consensus bears out this prediction; see Gross, Neal, Mason, Ward S. and Mceachern, Alexander, Explorations in Role Analysis (New York: Wiley, 1958).Google Scholar