There is by now ample evidence on a new social cleavage in West European politics between the New Left and the Far Right, structured at the level of voters by education and universalistic-particularistic group identities. However, there is disagreement on the scope and relevance of this cleavage: Some scholars argue that it involves only a minority of radical voters and parties. Others contend that it increasingly also structures competition between mainstream parties, and some even argue that is has become a dominant cleavage, similar to the class cleavage in the 20th century.
In this study, we use two original surveys to a) assess the extent of cleavage formation across West European countries, and b) to explain cross-national variance. In both surveys, we measure voters’ perception of group-party representation, i.e. we observe how voters link universalistic and particularistic group identities to parties.
In a first empirical step, we use 2024 EES data to observe citizens “mental maps” of group-party representation across EU countries, studying the scope of cleavage formation. Second, we use in-depth data from four countries to explain this variation. We probe two explanations: cleavage sequencing, whereby old group identities linked to the class cleavage lose ground but continue to structure mental maps of representation - especially among older voters; and generalized politicization, i.e. the extent to which the new cleavage structures citizens’ thinking about representation even among voters of moderate parties and with lower political knowledge and interest, who are not implicated on antagonist sides of the new cleavage.