Edited by Geoffrey Evans, University Professor and Official Fellow Nuffield College, and Nan Dirk de Graaf, University Professor and Official Fellow Nuffield College

Geoffrey Evans' research interests include social divisions, inequality, and politics in Britain, models of voting behaviour, the evolution of class and ethno-religious cleavages, and democratic consolidation in postcommunist societies. In addition to many journal articles covering these topics he has produced several books including The End of Class Politics? (OUP 1999). He is University Professor and Official Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford.

Nan Dirk De Graaf's research interests include empirical sociology in general, social stratification, especially educational attainment and consequences of social mobility, cultural sociology, sociology of religion and pro-social behaviour, and political sociology and criminology. He is University Professor and Official Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford.

Robert Andersen is Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of Toronto.
Ryan Bakker is Assistant Professor in Political Science, University of Georgia
Paolo Bellucci is Professor of Political Science at the University of Molise, Isernia, Italy.
Nan Dirk De Graaf is Official Fellow in Sociology, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
Martin Elff is Lecturer in European and German Politics, University of Essex.
Geoffrey Evans is Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, & Professor of the Sociology of Politics, University of Oxford.
Florent Gougou is PhD Candidate in Political Science, Science Po, Paris.
Oliver Heath is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Sara BinzerHobolt is Professor of European Institutions, European Institute, London School of Economics & Political Science.
Giedo Jansen is Postdoc researcher in Political Science, University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Natalia Letki is Assistant Professor in Sociology, University of Warsaw.
Gary Marks is a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne, Australia.
Ariana Need is Professor of Sociology and Public Governance, University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Lluís Orriols is Lecturer in Politics, University of Gerona.
Guillaume Roux is Research Scientist, Institute of Political Studies, Grenoble, France.
James Tilley is Fellow in Politics, Jesus College, & University Lecturer in Quantitative Social Science, University of Oxford.
David L. Weakliem is Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut.

"The electoral coalitions assembled by parties of different ideological stripes in todays established Western democracies are not simply a reflection of cross-national or inter-temporal differences in social structure; they also respond to the programmatic appeals of the parties, and more specifically the strategic configuration of programmatic moderation or polarization among them. Drawing on the most comprehensive cross-national and cross-time dataset available to date, and supplemented by a battery of meticulous case studies, this book drives home this crucial point in a more convincing way than any previous study. It is required reading for anyone probing into the realignments of partisan politics in postindustrial democracies and looking for methodological guidance in advancing that enterprise." - Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University

"The question have the effects of social cleavages declined, and if so, how and with what consequences? is fundamental to political sociology, but political scientists and sociologists approach it in different ways and reach different conclusions, often talking past each other in the process. This book bridges the gap by focusing on the values (ideological and social) in the causal chain that links class and religion with party choice. This enables the authors to address both the individual and party aspects of cleavages. Their investigations are conducted in a variety of advanced democracies and on pooled time series data. The result is a powerful synthesis that will be required reading for scholars of both disciplines." - Mark Franklin, MIT

"Issues of social cleavages and their electoral consequences are central to the study of modern democracies. Both theoretically and empirically, this collection is the most important contribution to date to the analysis of these issues. Rival accounts of shifts in cleavage politics in terms of social structural and cultural change or party strategies that determine how far voters can in fact express their class or religious interests, are rigorously formulated and evaluated using both cross-national analyses and national case studies. Quantitative sophistication is combined with sensitivity to institutional and historical specificities. The collection is essential reading for a wide range of social scientists, not to mention party leaders and their advisers." - John Goldthorpe, Nuffield College

"take this book not only as a significant milestone, but also as a springboard to invent new indicators of class and party politics." - European Sociological Review