People's Social Characteristics and Voting Patterns

People's Social Characteristics and Voting Patterns Over the years Sociologists have argued that people with similar

social characteristics tend to vote for the same parties. This usually

goes for Social Class.

From 1945 to 1970 many of the voters in Britain saw themselves as

either Labour or Conservative and therefore they voted accordingly.

This loyalty to a particular party is known as Partisan Alignment.

For years Labour (Left Wing) has been seen as the party for the

workingman and Conservative (Right Wing) seen as the party for the

Middle classes, and this was usually reflected in that of voting

patterns, like in the 1964 election where 64% of working class people

voted labour and 62% of middle class and upper classes voted

Conservative. These links between social class, party identification

and voting behaviour is known as Class Alignment.

According to Butler and Stokes (1974) what actually accounts for

Partisan and Class Alignment is Political Socialisation. This is where

children where socialised into following there parents party

identification and their party loyalty.