ABSTRACT
The Industrial Revolution and the gradual extension of suffrage laid the ground for the prevailing conflict dimension in West European party politics. Politically articulated conflict over income redistribution, welfare and the extent of state intervention in the economic sphere represents a common denominator of all European party systems. As Lipset and Rokkan (1967: 35) put it referring to Western Europe, ‘the “center-periphery,” the state-church, and the land-industry cleavages generated national developments in divergent directions, while the owner-worker cleavage tended to bring the party systems closer to each other in their basic structure’ (emphasis in the original). The economic left–right conflict dimension should thus provide a firm basis to begin the comparative inquiry into the structuring impact of cleavage-based identities on party stances towards European integration.
