The Strange Death of Labourism: Class Realignment in Britain and New Zealand?

Abstract

For most of the 20th century, political scientists gave social class a central importance in explaining voter behaviour. Electoral studies in Britain and New Zealand during the 1960s confirmed that a majority of people voted along class lines. In the following decade, however, electoral volatility and a decline in political participation meant the historic class-party alignment began to weaken. During the 1980s, a new consensus emerged around ‘dealignment’ theory and political scientists no longer considered social class to be the main explanatory variable for voter behaviour in Britain or New Zealand. Greater weight was given to new cleavages based on ‘post-material’ issues, such as environmentalism, race and gender. Electoral competition was increasingly explained with reference to the ideological convergence of political parties and ‘valence’ factors. Thus, in the early 21st century, only a small rear-guard of political sociologists continues to defend the importance of class in electoral studies. Labour Party victories in Britain and New Zealand during the late 1990s and early 2000s have been attributed to middle-class support. Yet analysis of occupational data from post-election studies in Britain and New Zealand reveals that Labour Parties consistently polled much higher with the working-class than they did the middle-class. While it is true that neither British Labour nor New Zealand Labour could have been elected without having a broad, cross-class appeal, the evidence suggests that the strategy was only successful insofar as those parties could maintain a relative majority of working-class voters. This provided them with a bedrock of electoral support and a ‘competitive advantage’ over centre-right parties. In the 2010s, however, any lead that Labour Parties had with the working-class has withered away. The thesis argues that this represents a significant departure from established patterns of voting in Britain and New Zealand. In Britain, the evidence is stronger for a ‘secular realignment’, with Labour losing more working-class support to other parties. In New Zealand, however, it is found that Labour has suffered more from lower turnout.