Decline of Class Voting or Change in Class Voting? Social Classes and Party Choice in Denmark in the 1970s

Abstract

Abstract The article criticizes stratification measures of social class and class voting, demonstrating that they may produce biased images of the relationship between social class and party choice. Firstly, it is argued that the conventional ‘Alford index of class voting’ is typically not comparable, neither over time nor across countries. Applying a materialist concept of social class, the author then concludes that class voting in Denmark has in fact increased, although Denmark is generally listed as the ‘prototypical’ evidence of the opposite. This difference in perception is due to significant changes in class behaviour which are concealed by stratification measures of social class.