ABSTRACT
That the cleavage model, first stated more than two decades ago by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967) has had a strong and enduring impact on the social sciences is once again demonstrated by the chapters in this section of the book. Probably a majority of scholars have tended to accept the major elements of the model and have cited it approvingly, but it has also encountered strong criticism and even rejection. One of the principal detractors is Michal Shamir (1984: 35), who argues against the famous Lipset-Rokkan thesis of the ‘freezing’ of party systems since the 1920s and reaches exactly the opposite conclusion: ‘party systems ... have never really been frozen’. In my opinion, however, Shamir attacks an overly broad interpretation of the ‘freezing’ proposition instead of the proposition that Lipset and Rokkan intended.
