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Political Cleavage: A Conceptual and Theoretical Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Alan Zuckerman
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Extract

Abraham Kaplan in his ‘paradox of conceptualization’ draws attention to the fundamental problem of concept-formation: ‘The proper concepts are needed to formulate good theory, but we need a good theory to arrive at the proper concepts’. On this view, concepts are neither right nor wrong but are more or less useful; their utility is determined by the twin and mutually dependent requirements of empirical precision and theoretical importance. ‘Empirical precision’ has to do with a concept's ability to ‘carve up’ the world of phenomena without unnecessary ambiguities; ‘theoretical importance’ has to do with the utility of a concept in the development of statements of wide explanatory and predictive power.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 231 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Kaplan, Abraham, The Conduct of Inquiry (Scranton, Pa.: Chandler Press, 1964), p. 53.Google Scholar

2 A dictionary definition of the verb ‘to cleave’ is as follows: ‘To split along natural lines of division’. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 251.Google Scholar

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9 Rokkan has developed this argument in more detail in Rokkan, Stein, Citizens, Elections an Parties (New York: David McKay, 1970).Google Scholar Other examples of this usage may be found in the work of Juan Linz, ‘The Party System of Spain; Past and Future’ and ‘Cleavage and Consensus in West German Polities’, in Lipset, and Rokkan, , Party Systems and Voter Alignments, 197–282Google Scholar and 283–324, and Janowitz, Morris and Segal, David, ‘Social Cleavage and Party Affiliation: Germany, Great Britain and the United States’, in Palma, Guiseppe Di, ed., Mass Politics (Chicago: Markham, 1972), 200–25.Google Scholar

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11 Dahrendorf, , Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society, p. 165.Google Scholar

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16 Dahl, Robert, Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), pp. 48ff.Google Scholar

17 In his terminological dictionary, Geoffrey Roberts defines ‘cleavage': ‘The condition of division between members of a political group or political system, and thus the opposite of “consensus"’. Roberts, Geoffrey, A Dictionary of Political Analysis (New York: St Martin's Press, 1971), p. 33.Google Scholar

18 Allardt, Eric and Pesonen, Pertti, ‘Cleavages in Finnish Polities’, in Lipset, and Rokkan, , Party Systems and Voter Alignments, 325–66, p. 325.Google Scholar

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34 The literature on ‘cross-cutting cleavages’ is voluminous. In addition to those cited in the text, see also, Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951)Google Scholar and Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959).Google Scholar

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40 Examples of this growing literature are Lemarchand, René and Legg, Keith, ‘Political Clientelism and Development’, Comparative Politics, IV (1972), 149–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lande, Carl, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia: Some Observations on the Group Theory of Polities’, American Political Science Review, LXVII (1973), 103–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Scott, James, ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia’, American Political Science Review, LXVI (1972), 428–44.Google Scholar

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42 Allardt, and Pesonen, , ‘Cleavages in Finnish Polities’, p. 345.Google Scholar

43 See Lijphart, ‘Typologies of Democratic Systems’, and Hans Daalder, ‘The Netherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society’, in Dahl, Robert, Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, 188–236.Google Scholar

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46 In addition to the already cited literature, Henry Kerr, ‘Social Cleavages and Partisan Conflict in Switzerland’, paper presented to the IX World Congress, International Political Science Association, Montreal, 1973, presents a detailed argument specifying the essential role played by these intervening variables in the analysis of political cleavage and political conflict.

47 For the purposes of this essay the nominal distinction between types of elites and mass political conflict is most useful. Note, however, that each is easily transformed into an interval measure. For a very useful and suggestive analysis which provides an interval measure for these dimensions see Gurr, Ted Robert and Mcclelland, Muriel, Political Performance: A Twelve Nation Study (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics, 1971).Google Scholar

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49 Zuckerman, Alan, ‘Social Structure and Political Competition: The Italian Case’, World Politics, XXIV (1972), 428–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Gurr and McClelland, Political Performance.

51 Sartori, ‘From the Sociology of Politics to Political Sociology’.

52 Di Palma, The Study of Conflict in Western Society.

53 Lijphart, ‘Typologies of Democratic Systems’.

54 Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies.

55 Alan Zuckerman, ‘On the Institutionalization of Political Clienteles: Party Factions and Cabinet Coalitions in Italy’, paper presented to the Meetings of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 1973.

56 Lipset, , Political Man, p. 230.Google Scholar As noted above, Lipset's later work incorporates social segments in addition to social class.

57 Mosca, Gaetano, Teorica Dei Governi e Del Governo Parlamentare (Milan: Giuffe, 1968), pp. 246–7 (my translation).Google Scholar