Changing Party Systems, Socio-Economic Cleavages, and Nationalism in Northern Europe, 1956-2017

• Main Authors: Martinez-Toledano, Clara, Sodano, Alice
• Other Authors: Paris School of Economics (PSE), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), World Inequality Lab (WIL)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SHS.ECO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Economics and Finance; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03135013; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03135013/document; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03135013/file/2021-04.pdf

This paper draws on a rich set of electoral surveys to explore the changing relationship between party support and electoral socioeconomic cleavages in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden from the mid-twentieth century until the present. All five countries have experienced a progressive decline in their strong class cleavages, which coincides with the emergence of multi-elite party systems, in line with most Western democracies. While in the 1950s-1960s the lowest-educated and lowest-income voters were more leftwing, since the 1970s-1980s the vote for the left has gradually become associated with the highest-educated voters, who have drifted apart from the more right-wing economic elites. We also investigate how this transformation relates to the success of populism and nationalism over the recent decades among the lowest-educated and lowest-income earners. Despite historical, cultural, and political links, the transition of Nordic countries towards a multi-elite party system has happened at different speeds, offering interesting insights on the specificities of the national trajectories.