No Class For Itself: Class Identity, Class Boundaries, and Vote Choice

Présentation en anglais, discussions bilingue.

How do the boundaries people draw against other social classes relate to voting preferences? As the class structure has become more fractured and complex, attitudes towards class out-groups may be more accessible than a cohesive sense of class solidarity (Savage 2000; Savage et al. 2001; Piston 2018; Stubager 2024a). However, this raises the possibility that different class identity groups may not hold particular perspectives on other classes. This article hypothesizes that variation in these class boundaries within groups and over time may help to explain changing patterns of class voting. To test this expectation, I leverage two sources of data. First, analyses of an original large-N quantitative online survey in England in 2021 find that class boundaries are strongly associated with vote choice, but are highly fragmented within class identity groups. Yet if class boundaries are not strongly anchored in class identity, this raises the question of their stability. To address this, I analyze British Election Study Internet Panel (BESIP) data from 2014-2020. Class boundaries appear to usually be stable within individuals. However, fixed effects models show they can change over time; consequentially, variation in anti-poor boundaries within respondents is strongly associated with their propensity to vote for the Conservatives. In sum, individuals are more likely to vote for the same party as those who share their class boundaries than those who share their class identities. The effects of boundary change underline how the social image of different classes can be an important site of conflict for political parties.

David Attewell est chercheur post-doctorant en science politique, University of Zurich.

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