José Pedro Lopes, in a recent South European Society and Politics article on “Post-industrial alignment and class support for radical left parties in Southern Europe,” identifies a pattern of post-industrial class support for the radical left. Using survey data, Lopes writes, the article found a link between “class support for the radical left” and “a horizontal distinction in the labor market based on work logic.”
The transition to post-industrial economies led to a realignment of partisan preferences in most advanced economies in the Western hemisphere, but attention, per Lopes, has mostly focused on mainstream and far-right parties. The article focuses on Southern Europe and asks “whether there is a post-industrial pattern of class support for the radical left.”
By radical left parties, Lopes is referring to a family of parties to the left of social democracy. They oppose the current socioeconomic and political status quo and reject “contemporary capitalism,” instead embracing collectivism and redistribution of wealth, though of course there are degrees to which said parties actually reject capitalism in practice.
Historically, Lopes writes, communist parties attracted production workers and farmers and some progressive members of the middle class, while left socialists stressed “post-materialist issues” and as such count “a considerable amount of new middle-class groups among their voters, as well as younger and more educated voters.” These parties have gone through significant changes over the 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union—but, then, Western societies have changed in that time, too.
“Diversity and Solidarity”
The article used data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Hellenic National Election Study (ELNES) to analyze the extent occupational class could explain support for radical left parties in Portugal, Spain, and Greece from 2008 to 2020. This region made sense, Lopes argued, because of the success of radical left parties there, particularly since the Eurozone crisis. Lopes also felt that Southern Europe’s relatively larger production and service workforce and relatively smaller middle class made it worthy of consideration.
Lopes found that people with daily interaction with other people as part of their work, specifically as interpersonal workers, were significantly more likely to support radical left parties. As Lopes writes, “Because these occupations deal with human individuality (e.g. health and education sectors), are heavily reliant on communication, and focus on people-work (e.g. direct care of children or elderly), these employees are more likely to hold culturally progressive attitudes and accept diversity and solidarity as principles of life.”
These parties received less support from production workers, whom many consider the traditional working class. Rather, these parties found firm support in sectors of the professional middle classes (technical and sociocultural professionals) and, to a lesser extent, in the ‘new working-class’ of service workers.”
Lopes suggests that future research should broaden the scope and include more recent developments, like the “electoral stagnation” of these parties in Spain and Portugal as the far right rises.
