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Sociological Theory Mayur
What is it? The sociological theory was pointed out by sociological theorist who said that people’s social characteristics influenced their participation in politics. Middle class tend to vote for Conservative and the working class were sided to vote for Labour. Pulzer in 1967 proposed this theory and said “Class is the basis of British politics; all else is embellishment and detail”.
What evidence is for it? As you can see from the results above, Conservative had very strong support from the middle class, almost 50% and above each year whereas Labour had strong support from semi/unskilled working class around ranges 41% to 59%. However the skilled working class (C2) has been balanced between the two parties where some years Conservative won more share and in some years Labour won more share % of vote.
What evidence is against it? Voting behaviour still affects social class but not to the extent it previously did. As you can see from the table above, in 1992 conservative had around 54% from middle class, now in 2010 they only had 39% share votes for middle class. For labour, in 1992, they had 50% share votes from working class and in 2010, it is now 40%. This shows us that early years was when the sociological theory was strong but in recent years it has weakened. I believe that dominant ideology theory has been more effective in recent years as people are becoming more influenced by media.
