Understanding the Conflict of Conflicts: Is Left-Right Conflict a Necessary Condition for the Development of New Politics?

Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Conor Little

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

One of the most significant changes in West European politics in the past 40 years is the emergence of the new cultural divide. However, there is substantial variation in how the issues comprising this new divide have manifested themselves in party systems. This raises the question of what mechanisms bring these issues into established party systems. The literature has so far focused on new political parties and critical junctures. This article argues that the left-right structure is a key condition for the integration of new political issues into party competition. Rather than seeing their integration as a matter of the emergence of a new, second conflict, it argues that new issues become central to party competition if the existing conflict structure presents established mainstream parties with vote-seeking or coalition-building incentives to focus on them. The article uses Ireland as a ‘negative case study’ to develop the argument.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)-
Number of pages22
JournalPolitical Studies
Volume72
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2024

Keywords

  • cleavages
  • Ireland
  • issue competition
  • new politics

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