ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the main aspects of Stein Rokkan’s theoretical contribution. Rokkan thoroughly studied transformations related to nation-building and the establishment of national politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cultural distinctiveness, social homogeneity and the establishment of dense organisational structures contribute to long-term stable sociopolitical membership of a subculture and allows for the translation of this membership into party and electoral politics. Traditional class voting and class politics, with which we were familiar until the 1960s, have waned, because of the erosion of collective identities around the working class and established middle classes. Religion plays a major role in the Republic of Ireland, although it is not used for party politics. The original starting point of Rokkan’s research on European politics was the centre-periphery cleavage. The conflict remains a major problem for Spanish politics and is still characterised by a high level of tension.
