Political Realignment

Russell Dalton is Research Professor of Political Science at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine. Dalton has been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship, Scholar-in-Residence at the Barbra Streisand Center, German Marshall Fund Research Fellowship, and the POSCO Fellowship at the East West Center in Hawaii. His research focuses on the role of citizens in the political process. Previous publications include The Participation Gap (OUP, 2017), Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy (OUP, 2011), and Citizens, Context and Choice: How Context Shapes Citizens' Electoral Choices (OUP, 2011).

• Introduction 1: The Evolution of Political Competition Social Structure and Political Cleavages 2: Citizens, Issues, and Political Cleavages 3: The Social Distribution of Cleavage Positions 4: Cleavage Patterns across Nations 5: Elites, Issues, and Political Cleavages Political Cleavages and Party Alignments 6: Placing Parties in the Political Space 7: Voters and Parties 8: Congruence and Representation 9: The American Experience Conclusion 10: Realignment and Beyond Appendices A: Issue Questions from the European Election Studies B: Citizen Issue Structures by Nation C: Identifying Party Positions D: Party Cleavage Positions E: Party Cleavage Polarization Scores F: The Complexity of Measurement G: Construction of Economic and Cultural Indices in the United States

... an extremely innovative approach...brings new perspectives to an important debate in contemporary political science...a fundamental work for anyone wishing to understand the dilemmas faced by democracies in an increasingly complex and pluralized world.