Cleavage Dimensions in Ten West European Countries

Abstract

The present article discusses different approaches for identifying empirical cleavage dimensions and concludes that a so-called cleavage-defined approach is most appropriate for identifying and interpreting party dimensions. It is further argued that discriminant analysis is a powerful statistical tool for analyzing cleavage dimensions in accordance with a cleavage-defined approach. Using different structural variables that are incorporated in the Lipset-Rokkan model for party cleavages in Western Europe, and two ideological dimensions (called left-right materialism and materialism/postmaterialism) as “input” for the dimensional analyses, data from Norway and the European Community countries (based on Euro-Barometer 16 from 1981) are analyzed and related to the comparative literature on cleavage structure in Western Europe.