The Democratic Party Coalition in the Eighties: a Reassessment of Ladd's Old Class/New Class Explanation of Intraparty Conflict
| Author | Daniel Parelman,Leo Perrotta,Derek J. Hackett,David Gopoian |
| Published date | 01 June 1987 |
| Date | 01 June 1987 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591298704000204 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
THE
DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
COALITION
IN
THE
EIGHTIES:
A
REASSESSMENT
OF
LADD’S
OLD
CLASS/NEW
CLASS
EXPLANATION
OF
INTRA-
PARTY
CONFLICT
DAVID
GOPOIAN
and
DEREK J.
HACKETT,
Kent
State
University
DANIEL
PARELMAN,
Decision
Research
Corporation
LEO
PERROTTA,
Director
of
Planning,
North
Providence,
RI
RITING
of
the
1948
election,
Berelson,
Lazarsfeld,
and
McPhee
concluded
in
Voting
(1966:
75)
that &dquo;the
conditions
underlying
V
V
persistent
voting
cleavages
are
best
met
in
class,
in
ethnic,
and
in
ecological
divisions
of
the
population.&dquo;
Much
of
the
evidence
collected
since
1948
suggests
that
sociodemographic
characteristics
no
longer
figure
as
prominently
in
explaining
voting
behavior
or
party
coalitions
in
the
U.S.
Abramson
(1978:
1070)
documents,
for
example,
that
the
overall
postwar
trend
shows
a
decline
in
class-based
voting.
Knoke
(1976:
29)
finds
that
education,
income,
and
occupation
together
account
for
less
than
4
per-
cent
of
the
variation
in
party
identification
in
each
of
the
presidential
elec-
tion
years
between
1960
and
1972.
Axelrod’s
(1982)
update
of
his
original
analysis
of the
demographic
coalitions
of
the
Democratic
and
Republican,
parties
(Axelrod
1972)
reveals
a
deterioration
of
the
group
bases
of
party
coalitions
in
the
New
Deal
era.
Practitioners
of
politics
also
seem
to
have
concluded
that
geodemographic
targeting
techniques,
once
considered
the
&dquo;new
magic&dquo;
in
devising
campaign
strategies
(Robbin
1980),
provide
less
predictability
than
political
consultants
had
once
thought
(Atlas
1981;
Hughes
1984).
Sweeping
changes
in
post-industrial
societies
may
account,
at
least
in
part,
for
some
of
the
@lining
impact
of
social
status
on
political
behavior.
Analysts
with
such
diverse
perspectives
as
Dahrendorf (1959),
Ladd
and
Hadley
(1975),
and
Kevin
Phillips
(1981)
have
discussed
the
effects
of
trans-
formed
economies
on
political
behavior.
Ladd
and
Hadley
(1975:
184)
pro-
vide
a
perspective
on
these
changes
that
applies
most
directly
to
our
own
research:
...
the
post-industrial
order
centers
decisively
around
the
precipitants
and
consequences
of
several
interrelated
developments:
affluence,
advanced
tech-
nological
development;
the
central
importance
of
knowledge,
national
com-
munication
processes,
the
growing
prominence
and
independence
of
the
culture;
new
occupational
structures,
and
with
them
new
life
styles
and
ex-
pectations,
which
is
to
say
new
social
classes
and
new
centers
of
power.
Received:
January
9,
1986
Revision
Received:
June
4,
1986
Accepted
for
Publication:
July
8,
1986
NOTE:
An
earlier
version of
this
paper
was
presented
at
the
1985
Annual
Meeting
of
the
Southern
Political
Science
Association,
Nashville,
Tennessee,
November
7-9
248
It
is
natural,
in
a
period
of
economic
and
social
transformation,
for
long-
standing
political
orientations
to
undergo
change.
In
particular,
Ladd
and
Hadley
contend
that
old
notions
of
class
conflict
and
status
differentiation
crease
to
explain
political
behavior
very
well
because
of
a
more
affluent,
post-industrial
working
class,
now
more
interested
in
stability
than
in
change,
and
because
of
a
post-industrial
elite
more
attuned
to
a
liberal
non-economic
political
agenda
that
focuses
on
those
issues
where
the
upper
classes
have
traditionally
displayed
a
higher
level
of
tolerance
than
the
working
class.
As
economic
issues
(i.e.,
questions
about
the
role
of
the
federal
govern-
ment
as
intervenor
in
the
economy,
and
the
redistribution
of
wealth,
benefits,
and
tax
burdens)
recede
from
the
limelight
and
are
replaced
by
concerns
that
are
essentially
non-economic,
the
working
class
is
found
to
be
the
con-
servative
force
in
the
U.S.,
while
the
better-educated
upper
classes
are
found
to
be
the
tolerant,
liberal
forces
in
society.
To
the
extent
that
a
sociodemographic
analysis of
party
coalitions
can
explain
conflict
and
consensus
in
the
U.S.,
it
must
address
the
post-industrial
character
of
political
orientations
in
the
U.S.
The
most
provocative
argu-
ment
regarding
the
impact
of
the
&dquo;new
classes&dquo;
on
party
structure
in
America
is
presented
in
Everett
Ladd’s
(1978)
Where
Have All
the
Voters
Gone?
Focusing
upon
the
impact
of
class
transformations
on
the
composition
of
the
Democratic
party’s
coalition,
Ladd
distinguishes
between.Old
Class
emocrats
(committed
to
the
values of
the
New
Deal
and
economic
liber-
alism)
and
the .,New
Class
Democrats.
(committed
to
social
and
cultural
liberalism).
k---
New
Class
Democrats
are
classified
by
Ladd
as
those
Democrats
under
forty
years
of
age,
college-educated,
and
employed
in
professional
or
managerial
occupations.
Old
Class
Democrats,
by
contrast,
are
classified
as
those
Democrats
over
age
fifty
who
are
without
college
training
and
em-
ployed
in
blue-collar
occupations.
Both
groups,
Ladd
suggests,
share
the
basic
values
of
economic
liberalism,
but
the
Old
Class
is
substantially
more
conservative
on
such
social
and
cultural
issues
as
sexual
mores,
the
environ-
ment,
and
racial
attitudes,
while
the
New
Class
l’ff!fItds
very
liberal
views
on
these
issues.
Ladd
argues
that
much
of the
conflict
observed
within
the
Democratic
party,
particularly
at
the
level
of
presidential
politics,
may
be
explained
by
this
&dquo;war
of the
world
views&dquo;
between
the
Old
Class
and
the &dquo;distinct
minority&dquo;
of
New
Class
Democrats.
Because
the
clout
of
the
New
Class
Democrats
is
far
disproportionate
to
their
numbers,
the
New
Class
has
estranged
Old
Class
Democrats
from
their
party,
and
the
Democrats
have
suffered
a
succession
of
losses
at
the
presidential
election
level
as
a
consequence
of
this
conflict.
The
objective
of
this
paper
is
to
assess
the
utility
of
Ladd’s
New
Class/Old
Class
construct
for
understanding
conflict
within
the
Democratic
party.
We
will
rely
on
the
same
1972-76
NORC
data
employed
by
Ladd
in
Ladd’s
original
analysis,
and
extend
our
analysis
into
the 1980s.
To
replicate
Ladd’s
analysis,
we
have
divided
respondents
from
NORC’s
surveys
into
four
groups:
Old
Class
Democrats
in
the
seventies;
Old
Class
Democrats
in
the
eighties;
New
Class
Democrats
in
the
seventies;
and
N,ew
Class
Democrats
in
the
eighties.
For
the
seventies,
our
data
are
from
the
combined
1972-76
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