ABSTRACT
One sociologist has argued that as the Jamaican party system involves "multiple class coalitions" class cannot be seen as the basis of Jamaican politics. The similar types of voting trend in Selton Town and Vermount would appear to support this view. Though both Selton Town and Vermount maintained active PNP groups and Citizens' Associations throughout the 1970s, these organizations had different roles to play in the two neighborhoods. During the same period in PNP Selton Town the Citizens' Association was defunct. Nonpartisan activity on behalf of working class people alone was unlikely to succeed. The following discussion contrasts the functioning of these organizations in the two neighborhoods. It reveals the different relations of classes to the political process; workers typically are involved as recipients of party patronage whereas a more autonomous middle class acts mainly to distribute that patronage.
