Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties

2007/09/27 by Heather Stoll · 75 citations
Social Sciences · #Context (archaeology) #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Epistemology #Geography #Law #Legislature #Measure (data warehouse) #Operationalization #Perspective (graphical) #Political Conflict and Governance #Political science #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Positive economics #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1177/0010414007305813

published in Comparative Political Studies 41(11), 1439-1465 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2007/09/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

This article explores the issues surrounding the operationalization and measurement of social cleavages in a large- N context from the perspective of the party systems literature. It first highlights the difficulty of measuring the concept, which it argues has impeded hypothesis testing, and suggests strategies for improving upon existing measures. It then demonstrates that the conclusions we draw about well-known hypotheses linking social cleavages to the number of electoral parties in legislative elections depend upon the measure we employ. Hence, the article makes the case that how we measure social cleavages matters.

Citations

• “Effective” Number of Parties
• Rehabilitating Duverger’s Theory
• Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War

Cited by

• Social Diversity Affects the Number of Parties Even Under First-Past-the-Post Rules
• Demographic Diversity and District-Level Party Systems
• Cohesion Policy in the European Union: Growth, Geography, Institutions
• Horizontal Inequality, Crosscutting Cleavages, and Civil War
• Party system nationalization, party centralization and legislative de/centralization in federal democracies
• The Seat Product Model of the effective number of parties: A case for applied political science

Related

• Cleavage
• International Encyclopedia of Political Science
• Social Diversity Affects the Number of Parties Even Under First-Past-the-Post Rules
• Parties and Voters: What Creates the Ties?
• “Effective” Number of Parties