The social bases of the transnational cleavage in Europe

This working paper is based on the interventions on the conference “Europe at the Cross-Roads: Challenges of the EU for National Politics” held at Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, in October 15, 2018, a partnership between Institute of Public Policy, MAPLE, and FLAD. The rise of a new transnational divide on immigration and Europe raises fundamental questions about the character of party competition and the causal bases of voting. Using ESS data and panel data for the Netherlands and Switzerland, we find that those who vote for political parties established on the new cleavage - green and radical TAN parties - have more structured partisan preferences than supporters of mainstream political parties.

Authors: Gary Marks, David Attewell, Jan Rovny and Liesbet Hooghe.