Social classes and political behaviours: Directions for a geographical analysis

The pertinence of social classes to the understanding of political behaviour has been questioned. The purpose of this article is to propose some directions for a geographical approach of political behaviour centred on social classes. More precisely, we intend here to show how geography can participate in this major debate about the present relevance of social classes. To achieve this objective, a geographical analysis must integrate two major socio-political evolutions since the 1970s: the re-composition processes of social classes and the role of parties in the decline of class voting. Drawing on examples in Belgium, the paper proposes original multi-scalar analyses that take these evolutions into account. At local scale, we highlight fractures inside intermediate classes, which are associated to the fact that left wing segments of these classes are more inclined to live in core cities. At national level, we show the deepness of class and regional gaps in political attitudes despite relative dealignment in electoral behaviour, resulting in the difficulties for big national parties to keep together such a heterogeneous electoral support. Finally, we show how big left wing national parties are able to overcome these difficulties when they are associated to strong and dense local social networks. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.SCOPUS: ar.j