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Political Cleavages and Political Realignment in Norway: The New Politics Thesis Reexamined
Author(s) -
Knutsen Oddbjøm
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1986.tb00347.x
Subject(s) - ideology , politics , polarization (electrochemistry) , left wing politics , political science , materialism , political economy , cleavage (geology) , norwegian , political culture , sociology , law , epistemology , philosophy , chemistry , linguistics , geotechnical engineering , fracture (geology) , engineering
The question of political realignment and dealignment in advanced industrial democracies has been the subject of considerable comparative analysis. The present study takes the literature regarding the ‘new politics’ thesis as the point of departure and examines the relative importance of different political cleavages. The traditional socio‐structural cleavages in the Rokkan/Lipset model for political polarization in industrial society are contrasted with an extended ideological cleavage model which includes five different dimensions. Using data from a nationwide Norwegian survey, the findings indicate that although there is a clear tendency towards a generation‐based structural de‐alignment process in accordance with ‘new politics’ literature. the thesis that the materialist/post‐materialist dimension has taken over as the dominant polarization pattern in Norway is not generally confirmed. The ‘old left‐right’ ideological cleavages ‐ which we have called Leftist/Rightist Materialism ‐ appears to be of greater importance. even in the post‐war generations.