Class Inequalities in Political Participation and the ‘Death of Class’ Debate

Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer an empirical contribution to the debate on the political significance of class, and especially the relationship between class position and political participation. The ‘death of class’ debate has primarily addressed only one aspect of politics — voting. The perspective offered here widens the scope of analysis to include the main forms of political action available to citizens in modern democracies. In this article, a comparative cross-national approach is adopted, using data on 20 European countries that are included in the first wave of the European Social Survey. Using log-linear models as a descriptive device, the article identifies a basic pattern of association between class and participation, points out the main national deviations from that pattern and makes a comparative assessment of the relative magnitude of overall levels of class inequalities in participation in different forms of political activity. The results bear out the continuing relevance of class as a source of differentiation of political behaviour and tend to confirm previous research regarding the validity of empirical generalizations on class patterns of political participation.