Replication Data for 'How does the Education Cleavage Stack up Against the Classic Cleavages of the Past?

This paper conceptualizes a political cleavage as the extent to which a group sharing a distinct social characteristic is over-represented in a political party. Using a robust measure, we find that 1) an education cleavage now structures voting for GAL and TAN parties in Western Europe; 2) these parties are far more cleavaged than contemporary center-left and center-right parties; 3) GAL and TAN parties are as socially structured as classically cleavaged social democratic parties in the 1950s; 4) the Republican and Democratic parties have also become strongly cleavaged on education. In neo-cleavage theory, the formation of cleavages is punctuated by periods of dealignment as prior divides lose their grip and new conflicts give rise to new political parties with distinctive social cores. There is plausible evidence that education now structures political parties in contemporary Western democracies.

本文将政治裂痕（political cleavage）概念化为：拥有独特社会特征的群体在某一政党中代表性过剩的程度。本研究采用稳健的测度方法，得到以下四项发现：1）教育裂痕如今塑造了西欧地区GAL与TAN政党的选民投票格局；2）相较于当代中左翼与中右翼政党，这两类政党的政治裂痕程度显著更高；3）GAL与TAN政党在社会结构性层面，可与20世纪50年代经典分化型社会民主党派相媲美；4）美国共和党与民主党在教育维度上的政治裂痕也愈发显著。在新裂痕理论（neo-cleavage theory）框架下，当旧有政治分歧失去影响力、新的社会冲突催生了具备独特社会核心的新型政党时，政治裂痕的形成会被脱联盟（dealignment）时期所打断。现有可信证据表明，教育维度如今塑造着当代西方民主国家的政党格局。