ABSTRACT
In German-speaking Switzerland, socioeconomic development and intergenerational change tend to generate a more unified and one-dimensional ideological culture in which "old" and "new" issues are more thoroughly linked to each other as subcomponents of an overarching general dimension of "left" and "right". In all Western democracies, the landscape of political cleavages, ideological polarizations and controversial political issues looks quite different now than thirty years ago. Political parties have particularly strong links to ideological culture because it is their job to contribute to the aggregation and articulation of collectively shared opinions, values and goals. In the French- and Italian-speaking cantons, correlations between different ideological dimensions remain low, managerial employees show no ideological commitment and significant impacts of occupation are only found when community affluence is high and/or most of party members are younger than forty-five. The theory of post-materialism and "new political culture" suggest that parties with younger members and in highly developed communities are most affected by political value changes.
