Μεταξύ αποευθυγράμμισης και επανευθυγράμμισης: ανασκόπηση της παρακαταθήκης των Lipset και Rokkan με αφορμή τη θρησκευτική διαιρετική τομή στη Γερμανία

Abstract

The article aims at examining the religious cleavage in Germany four decades after the first publication of S.M. Lipset and St. Rokkan’s influential work Party Systems and Voter Alignments. The two main arguments found in the actual literature on ‘cleavages’ are the ‘dealignment’ and ’realignment’ arguments. The former pinpoints the decay of cleavages over time while the latter observes their resurgence by adopting new attributes. In regard to Germany, it is indicated that the initially existing ‘confessional cleavage’ has been gradually overlapped by a ‘religious’ one. In other words, church attachment turns out to be a more secure factor of predicting voting behavior than confession. Nowadays, two conflicting phenomena seem to have a strong impact on religious cleavage: the increasing secularization on the one hand and the occasional politicization of certain public issues on the other hand that divide voters along the cleavage of values. In conclusion, the central role of religion in understanding voting behavior in contemporary Germany confirms the perpetuation of religious cleavage with new attributes.