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Socioeconomic Development and Party System Fragmentation Cross‐Nationally
Author(s) -
Raymond Christopher
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/polp.12272
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , ethnic group , fragmentation (computing) , social class , cleavage (geology) , socioeconomic development , political science , demographic economics , geography , economic growth , development economics , sociology , economics , demography , computer science , population , law , operating system , geotechnical engineering , fracture (geology) , engineering
The literature examining the number of parties cross‐nationally has focused extensively on the impact of electoral systems; the study of social cleavages is, by comparison, less well developed. While a sizeable body of research has examined the effects of ethnic and other measures of diversity, other cleavages have received less attention. This article focuses on the impact of socioeconomic development—reflecting class and urban‐rural cleavages—on party system fragmentation. Examining a large cross‐national dataset, the analysis shows that, in line with the expectations of social cleavage theory and independently of other social cleavage variables, socioeconomic development is associated with higher levels of party system fragmentation.