Class in American Politics

Introduction

Social class is a concept that has proven notoriously difficult to define despite the fact that seemingly everyone thinks they know what it means. Despite the ambiguity surrounding the concept, most would agree that social class involves differentials in resources, economic positions, and status among various individuals and groups in a particular society. Whether and/or how such differentials affect the political organization and governance of the society in question is the primary focus of analyses of class and politics. Many would claim that the place of social class in politics has been a central question of those who study politics since the time of Aristotle, who famously argued in his Politics that the type of government a city had was determined by which social class held political power. Still others would argue that the examination of class and politics goes back even further to Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who in his Republic had Socrates explain that a truly just city requires its inhabitants be divided into three groupings based on natural abilities (and also age)—rulers, guardians, and farmers and craftsmen—and charged the guardians with preventing both wealth and poverty from entering the city because of the fact that the presence of either inevitably corrupts justice. Either way, it is clear that the concern with how the two interact goes back a long time. This entry looks specifically the role of social class in American politics. While it was once asserted by some that the United States was a classless society, or at least a society where class was irrelevant in the nation’s politics, it is now virtually unanimously accepted that social class has mattered politically. The leading pieces of research on this matter are briefly addressed here.

Class and Political Conflict in the United States

James Madison, whose strong influence on America’s system of governance earned him the title “Father of the Constitution,” famously argued in Federalist #10 that the primary aim of an effective form of government in a free society had to be controlling the mischiefs of faction. Less attention is paid to what Madison had to say about the primary source of faction, “The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.” There is no reason to believe that Madison saw the fledgling United States as different from any other society in the centrality of differences in class to the creation of factions, and we know that Madison and many of the other delegates to the Constitutional Convention were deeply concerned over what they considered to be the radical policies being instituted by the lower classes in some of the states in the pre-Constitutional period (Madison, et al. 1987, p. 124). Beard 1986 uses Madison’s thoughts in #10 as the springboard for his seminal study arguing that the Constitution of the United States was a document constructed by Founding Era economic elites to protect themselves from and benefit at the expense of the economic have-nots of the time (see McDonald’s introduction to the 1986 edition). Such a view obviously puts class conflict at the heart of American politics. Even though McDonald 1958 thoroughly disproved Beard’s central thesis that differentials in property holding was the primary driver of support for or opposition to the Constitution during the ratification era, Beard’s focus on the interaction between economics and politics during the founding period remains relevant today. The place of class in American political conflict after the Founding Era has also been hotly contested. America’s most famous outside political observers—Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce—both reflected at length on class and politics in their evaluations of the American experiment. Tocqueville 1990 argues that while Americans loved the pursuit of wealth and a vast array of economic situations existed within the population, class conflict had virtually no impact on American politics because all citizens (recognizing of course the limited definition of citizenship in play at this time) considered themselves to be equals on the political playing field. Bryce 1995 went even further, claiming that in addition to lack of class conflict in its politics, the United States lacked social classes in the traditional European sense. Prominent 20th-century analysts of American politics agreed, with Hartz 1955 attributing the lack of class conflict in American politics to the nation’s lack of a feudal past and Alford 1963 and Hamilton 1972 assigning the lack of class-based politics to the fact that American political parties have generally not appealed to the electorate based on class themes, preferring to organize voters on the basis of religious, ethnic, racial, and/or regional lines. Others, however, have vehemently disputed class as an irrelevant thesis. In his explanation of how the focus on race had prevented the class politics of the rest of the nation from penetrating the South, Key 1984, 307 echoed the view attributed to Madison above that “politics generally comes down, over the long run, to a conflict between those who have and those who have less.” In his critique of pluralism as an accurate view of American politics, Schattschneider 1960 argued that the American political system was one in which the deck was heavily stacked against the interests of the lower class, a sentiment echoed in Piven and Cloward 1988 (cited under Social Class and Political Participation). Students of class and American politics need to carefully consider and evaluate arguments on both sides of this issue.

Alford, Robert R. Party and Society: The Anglo-American Democracies. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963.
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Most significant here because of his contributions to the measurement of class (more to come below), Alford also offered one of the first in-depth quantitative analyses of class and electoral behavior in the United States (and also Australia, Canada, and Great Britain).
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Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Free Press, 1986.
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Beard’s work made the then almost blasphemous argument the Founding Fathers created the Constitution primarily to protect their own economic interests. Beard used then unexamined Treasury Department records to support his argument. This edition contains an extremely helpful introduction by Forrest McDonald. First published in 1913.
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Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1995.
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The second most famous (behind Tocqueville’s) examination of the American experiment by an outsider. Many today see Bryce as far too flattering of the United States in his account, but many of his observations are highly insightful and have stood the test of time. First published in 1888.
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Hamilton, Richard F. Class and Politics in the United States. New York: John Wiley, 1972.
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Often overlooked, this text is one of the first overarching looks at how class intersects with American politics in a variety of ways. Still deserving of attention.
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Hartz, Louis J. The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955.
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At heart a treatise on American political culture, Hartz grounds his case for American exceptionalism in the nation’s lack of a feudal past and its thorough embrace of liberalism in the original meaning of the term.
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Key, V. O., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
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Although Key’s primary purpose here was a thorough examination of the politics of the South as a whole and on a state-by-state basis, Southern Politics also provides a clear example of how the elites can disadvantage the masses by keeping class out of the public dialogue via the substitution of another issue. Previously published in 1949.
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Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1987.
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One of many collections of the Federalist, this includes an excellent introductory essay by Isaac Kramnick. First published in 1788.
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McDonald, Forrest. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
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In a book that grew out of his dissertation, McDonald created economic biographies of almost all of the delegates at the federal convention and the state ratifying conventions to effectively dismiss Beard’s thesis regarding property ownership and views on the Constitution.
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Schattschneider, E. E. The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960.
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A classic text about the nature of political conflict and how the rules a society creates for itself affects political conflict. According to Schattschneider, most of the rules in the American case are set up to benefit the affluent at the expense of those who are less well off.
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Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. New York: Vintage, 1990.
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There are of course numerous reasons to read this classic text, but any serious student of class and American politics needs to engage Tocqueville. Previously published in 1835 and 1840.
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Class and American Politics in the 19th Century

It must be stated at the outset of this section that students of class and politics still have much work to do with regard to 19th-century America. For many years the place of class in the politics of the Founding Era was simply ignored. As noted above, Beard’s research on the property holdings of the Founders and McDonald’s response (again, noted above) changed this. Eventually, other scholars turned their attention to the opponents of the ratification of the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists. When focusing specifically on class and opposition to the Constitution, Cornell 1999 is perhaps most important. In making the case that opponents of the Constitution were not a monolithic bloc, Cornell argued that Anti-Federalist dissent could and should be divided into three broad categories at least somewhat defined by class—elite Anti-Federalism, middling Anti-Federalism, and radical Anti-Federalism. The specific objections of each group were determined in part by class concerns, as were their reactions after the Constitution was ratified. Siemers 2003 builds on Cornell’s work in important ways. Class has also been central to the study of politics during the period from the 1820s to the 1840s, the so-called Age of Jackson. Some scholars, perhaps most notably the author of Schlesinger 1946, have found appeals to the common folk and advocacy for policies beneficial to the lower classes key to the political coalition created by Andrew Jackson, while others—with Benson 1961 being most notable on this side—argued that Jackson’s and his party’s successes often had little to do with class and did little to benefit less fortunate Americans. Watson 1990 strikes a nice balance between these two competing perspectives. Finally, the place of class in the political and social discontent of the latter three decades of the 19th century has received a great deal of attention. Goodwyn 1976, McMath 1992, and Kazin 1998 have produced important work on the place of class in the Populist and associated protest movements of this period, while Hofstadter 1955 and Wiebe 1967 trace these same protests through and examine their relationships to the Progressive movement that began toward the end of the 19th century. Class is of course also important to the original stirrings of the American labor movement. The above noted Hofstadter and Kazin works are helpful here, as are studies such as Licht 1995 and Sanders 1999. To close out the discussion of class and American politics during the 19th century, it is clear is that scholars do not yet have clarity or agreement on how class and politics intersected during this period. This makes for fertile ground for future scholars.

Benson, Lee. The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
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Benson used a careful study of New York election returns and other evidence to dispute the then-conventional wisdom that party politics during the so-called age of Jackson was built on class differences. Benson argued instead that ethnic and religious differences undergirded the party system in Jacksonian America.
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Cornell, Saul. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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Perhaps the strongest treatment of what drove those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Clearly demonstrated that the Anti-Federalists were not a monolithic group and that some of them were driven primarily by class-related concerns.
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Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
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Still one of the best, if not the best, studies of the Populist movement of the late 19th century. Those interested in this episode of class and politics need to read this book. There was an abridged version published in 1978.
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Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
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Hofstadter, in one of the most influential works of 20th-century American history, traces ideas and reform efforts from the Populist era, through the Progressive movement, to the New Deal. Not all scholars agree with Hofstadter, but all must engage him, even today.
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Kazin, Michael. The Populist Persuasion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
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The one study that attempts to examine the totality of populism in American society and politics. A good treatment of the various nuances (including class) that make up American populism. Previously published in 1995.
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Licht, Walter. Industrializing America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
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Licht provides a comprehensive study of the growth the American labor movement covering the entirety of the 19th century. The bibliographic essay included here is helpful.
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McMath, Robert C., Jr. American Populism: A Social History 1877–1898. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.
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A solid study of the late-19th-century rural discontent and its attempts (ultimately unsuccessful) to join forces with the burgeoning urban working class of the period. A good lesson on the difficulties of class politics in the United States.
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Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State 1877–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
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In this American Political Development (APD) classic study, Sanders examines the economic positions and demands of farmers and urban workers in the latter part of the 19th century and argues that these demands largely shaped Progressive Era reforms in the early-20th-century development of the American state apparatus.
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Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1946.
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The quintessential study of Jacksonian democracy as the politics of class differences. This is the primary piece Benson was arguing against.
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Siemers, David J. The Antifederalists: Men of Great Faith and Forbearance. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
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Siemers builds on Cornell’s work and provides greater depth on the class positions of various strains of Anti-Federalist arguments.
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Watson, Harry L. Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America. New York: Hill and Wang, 1990.
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A balanced examination of just exactly what Jacksonian democracy really was. Provides a careful consideration of multiple arguments.
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Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order 1877–1920. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967.
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In this excellent study, Wiebe documents the social and economic changes that produced the American agrarian revolt of the late 19th century, while at the same time making the case that this revolt was doomed to fail.
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Class and the New Deal

If there is one subject broached in this article where there is virtually unanimous agreement among scholars, it is the assertion that the New Deal party system and political alignment was organized on the basis of social class. More clearly than at any other time in American political history, social class was front and center in the New Deal era. The primary issues were seen in terms of class, the parties and their politicians spoke in class terms, and voters cast their ballots largely (but not exclusively) on the basis of class interests. Leuchtenburg 1963 and Schlesinger 1957, Schlesinger 1959, and Schlesinger 1960 provide broad overviews of the New Deal era documenting the central role of class in the politics of this period. Levine 1988 demonstrates the key ways in which class concerns shaped public policy outputs during the New Deal. Journalist Lubell 1965 documents how Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic Party became much more reliant on and supportive of the poor and the working class during the New Deal. Finally, detailed quantitative studies Ladd and Hadley 1975 and Sundquist 1983 along with a widely cited short piece Shively 1971–1972 provide strong support for the claim that vote choice and party coalitions during the New Deal were heavily influenced by social class.

Ladd, Everett Carll, Jr., and Charles D. Hadley. Transformations of the American Party System. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.
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Here, Ladd and Hadley use early American Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup) survey data to demonstrate the strong influence of social class on party identification and vote choice during the New Deal era.
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Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
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In this well-written volume Leuchtenburg deftly explores the myriad ways class was seemingly everywhere in the politics of the New Deal.
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Levine, Rhonda F. Class Struggle and New Deal. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.
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Levine uses primary source documents to argue that class concerns strongly shaped the public policies produced during the New Deal era.
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Lubell, Samuel. The Future of American Politics. 3d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
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In his attempt to forecast where American politics was headed in the early 1950s and beyond, Lubell made the case for the class-based political arrangement established during the New Deal. Previously published in 1952.
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Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.
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This monumental three-volume study of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal should be the starting point for anyone wishing to learn more in this area. Regardless of his strong Democratic partisanship and unabashed liberalism the scholarship here is top flight. In this first volume Schlesinger traces the economic crisis that was the New Deal from the end of World War I to the inauguration of Roosevelt as president in March 1933.
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Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959.
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Volume two of Schlesinger’s master work covers primarily the events of 1933 and 1934, beginning with Roosevelt’s famous first “Hundred Days” in office. Those interested in the so-called First New Deal will want to concentrate on this volume.
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Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Politics of Upheaval. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.
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In this third and final volume Schlesinger examines the Court-led rejection of the first New Deal, the challenges to Roosevelt from the left, and Roosevelt’s crafting of the second New Deal before finishing with a discussion and analysis of Roosevelt’s reelection in 1936. This work provides a clear understanding of how class played into the famous New Deal coalition crafted by Roosevelt.
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Shively, W. Phillips. “A Reinterpretation of the New Deal Alignment.” Public Opinion Quarterly 35 (1971–1972): 621–624.
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In this short but influential piece, Shively uses the discredited Literary Digest presidential election polls of 1924, 1928, 1932, and 1936 to argue that there was a clear shift to FDR and the Democratic Party in 1936, firmly establishing the class basis of the New Deal political alignment.
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Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1983.
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In one of the classic pieces of realignment theory scholarship, Sundquist convincingly demonstrates that social class was the key component of the New Deal party system.
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The Measurement of Class in a Survey Data-Dominated World

One could make the argument that a discussion of how to measure social class needs to occur earlier in this essay, but I would disagree. For the vast majority of work discussed thus far, class was treated as a given, its measurement a non-issue. It is not until the widespread use of survey and other quantitative data in study of class and politics that questions of how to properly define and measure social class rise to the foreground. When discussing the measurement of social class we need to deal with two separate but related issues. The first is the classic disagreement between Karl Marx and Max Weber over the proper meaning of social class. For Marx, class was all about a person’s relation to the means of production. Those who owned the capital were in one class while those who did not were in the other. In Weber’s view such a division was too simplistic. Weber viewed class as a multidimensional phenomenon, determined not only by property ownership but other characteristics as well such as education, income, occupational status, and prestige. Jackman and Jackman 1983 (cited under the Declining Significance of Class) provide a good overview of these competing perspectives. The vast majority of scholarship examining class and American politics employs a Weberian approach to social class, which leads us to our second issue in the measurement of class—which characteristic or combination of characteristics most accurately captures the essence of social class? Three different approaches are commonly used. The first determines class by self-reported membership in a class category, e.g., poor, working class, middle class, upper class, rich, etc. This subjective approach has a bit of Marx in it as the it holds group consciousness as key to class membership and the categories have some relation to the means of production Centers 1949, Huckfeldt and Kohfeld 1989 (cited under the Declining Significance of Class), and Jackman and Jackman 1983 (cited under the Declining Significance of Class) are prominent works that use this approach. A second common approach uses occupation to determine class. A simple version of this approach pioneered in Alford 1963 (cited under Class and Political Conflict in the United States) creates two classes on the basis of the manual labor versus non-manual labor nature of a given occupation. Hamilton 1972 (cited under Class and Political Conflict in the United States) uses this approach. A more complex occupational approach placing individuals in a variety of class categories on the basis of the nature of their occupation is used in Hout, et al. 1995; Brooks and Manza 1997; Manza and Brooks 1999; and Manza and Brooks 2008 (all cited under the Evolving Significance of Class). Finally, other scholars use income level to determine social class. The argument here is that nothing else determines one’s opportunities and life chances as much as one’s income level. Bartels 2008 (cited under Continuing Significance of Class), Brewer and Stonecash 2007 (cited under Continuing Significance of Class), and Stonecash 2000 (cited under Continuing Significance of Class) are prominent examples or works that use income to measure social class. Education is not widely used to measure class, but its importance is discussed in Sosnaud, et al. 2013. Any scholar seeking to work in the area of class and politics will need to engage the question of measurement.

Centers, Richard. The Psychology of Social Classes: A Study of Class Consciousness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.
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A classic study offering a strong justification for the subjective measurement of social class.
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Sosnaud, Benjamin, David Brady, and Stephen M. Frenk. “Class in Name Only: Subjective Identity, Objective Class Position, and Vote Choice in American Presidential Elections.” Social Problems 60 (2013): 81–99.
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Discusses the difficulty in measuring social class and demonstrates that the matters of how we measure class and how voters perceive class influence research findings and vote choice.
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Differing Perspectives on Class and Politics in Post–New Deal America

As previously discussed, there is widespread agreement that social class dominated American politics during the New Deal era. The place of class in the politics of post–New Deal America is much more hotly contested. Speaking generally and engaging in some oversimplification, research on the role of class in American politics from the 1950s to the present almost always falls into one of three broad categories—the declining significance of class, the continued significance of class in similar manner to its significance during the New Deal, or the continued significance of class but in different and evolving ways.

The Declining Significance of Class

Of the three categories outlined above, the school of thought that social class has declining significance in American politics is the most common. The general argument here—clearly articulated by Abramson 1975—is that as the economic crisis of the New Deal years passed and the United States became a more affluent society, Americans began to base their electoral behavior on something other than class concerns. Bell 1973; Clark and Lipset 1991; Clark and Lipset, et al. 1993; and Inglehart 1990 argued that basic structural changes to the economy and to society made class concerns less relevant. Frank 2004 and Wattenberg 1995 argued that the rising importance of cultural issues reduced the significance of social class. Still other researchers—perhaps most prominently Edsall and Edsall 1991 and Huckfeldt and Kohfeld 1989 pointed to race as the reason for the declining relevance of class. Ladd with Hadley 1975 and Lawrence 1996 argued that the declining importance of class in American politics was a combination of all of the above. Finally, Jackman and Jackman 1983 attributed the lack of importance of class to politics to a party system that failed to properly address class concerns such that individuals could act in their class interest. The common thread in all of these studies was a significantly reduced relevance of class to American politics in the aftermath of the New Deal era.

Abramson, Paul R. Generational Change in American Politics. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975.
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Abramson uses primarily American National Election Studies (ANES) data to document the decline of class-based voting in post–Second World War America. According to Abramson, the two primary culprits of this decline are the mass incorporation and mobilization of African Americans into the electorate and the reduced impact of class on vote choice among white voters who entered the electorate in the postwar era. This work is data rich, but a bit thin on theory.
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Bell, Daniel. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
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Bell’s seminal study should be read in conjunction with the Clark and Lipset pieces and Inglehart 1990. Heavy on both theory and data, Bell lays out the shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy and examines the implications this shift will have on society. He presciently discusses the growing importance of knowledge in the economic realm, and makes the case for how this will change both the social class structure and the political structure.
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Clark, Terry Nichols, and Seymour Martin Lipset. “Are Social Classes Dying?” International Sociology 6 (1991): 397–410.
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In this piece Clark and Lipset argue emphatically that social class is increasingly an outmoded concept. Class is rapidly losing its political relevance due to the declining presence of hierarchies in the post-industrial world and the rise of new realms of social and political conflict. This study is rich in theory but quite thin on empirical data.
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Clark, Terry Nichols, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Michael Rampel. “The Declining Political Significance of Social Class.” International Sociology 8 (1993): 293–316.
DOI: 10.1177/026858093008003003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Clark and Lipset, along with Rampel this time around, extend the argument of Clark and Lipset 1991. Social class continues to rapidly decline in political significance due to the rise of the welfare state and its resulting social safety net; changes in the labor market toward smaller, less hierarchical employers; increasing societal affluence; and changes in the issues defining partisan conflict. Both of these articles focus primarily on the West, but in this piece Clark and others argue that evidence points to the declining important of class moving beyond the West as well.
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Edsall, Thomas Byrne, and Mary D. Edsall. Chain Reaction. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
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Edsall and Edsall argue that political conflict over race and taxes served to destroy the liberal, Democratic coalition dominant in American politics since the New Deal era and create in its place a conservative, Republican coalition that was in control, at least at the presidential level. This is one of the first works to examine both the culture wars in American politics and political polarization. An important book.
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Frank, Thomas. What’s the Matter with Kansas? New York: Metropolitan, 2004.
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In this book journalist Frank famously argues that the Republican Party is using cultural issues to dupe lower- and working-class Americans into voting against their class interests. Thin on theory and even thinner on data, this book nonetheless had a huge impact on this discussion of class and American politics both within and outside of academia.
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Huckfeldt, Robert, and Carol Weitzel Kohfeld. Race and the Decline of Class in American Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
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A highly impactful study arguing that issues surrounding race prevent social class from structuring American politics. The authors use quantitative data from a wide variety of sources to support their argument.
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Inglehart, Ronald. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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Agree or disagree, this text is absolutely central to the study of class and politics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Focused primarily (but not entirely) on the post-industrial West, Inglehart argues that rising affluence has reduced the important of class in political conflict, allowing cultural issues to rise to the forefront. Inglehart uses an enormous amount of data to make his case and support his argument. Inglehart’s other work should be read as necessary.
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Jackman, Mary R., and Robert W. Jackman. Class Awareness in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
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Using a subjective measure of class, Jackman and Jackman offer a broad look at the place of class in American society. They argue that class is not terribly relevant in terms of politics largely due to the failure of political parties to provide the proper education and issue positions that would allow for a high level of class relevance in the political realm.
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Ladd, Everett Carll, Jr., and Charles D. Hadley. Transformations of the American Party System. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.
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This work relies on a remarkably wide array of survey data to examine first the origins and growth of the New Deal party system and then the decline and collapse of said system under the weight of first societal conflict over race and second the rise of the post-industrial economy in the United States. This is the first prominent work to declare the New Deal coalition (and thus the party system that resulted from it) dead. There is also a lengthy analysis of the weakening of political parties.
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Lawrence, David G. The Collapse of the Democratic Presidential Majority. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996.
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Using data from the ANES and other sources, Lawrence makes the argument that the Democratic Party lost its New Deal coalition-created presidential majority due to the rising affluence of the American electorate, the emergence of race becoming a central issue in partisan conflict, and the Republican Party coming to be seen as the party of prosperity, primarily during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Realignment theory is central to this analysis.
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Wattenberg, Ben J. Values Matter Most. New York: Basic Books, 1995.
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In a book written primarily for a non-academic audience, Wattenberg argues that values rather than economics have come to dominate American elections since the 1960s. The rise of cultural issues at the expense of economic issues has primarily benefitted the Republican Party.
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The Continuing Significance of Class

A smaller number of studies have argued that traditional New Deal class divisions remain strong in contemporary American politics. These studies generally measure class using income levels and find that rather than declining since the 1950s, the effect of income levels on party identification and vote choice has risen over time. These studies do not dispute the rising importance of cultural issues in American politics but argue that class still matters as well. The most prominent of these studies are Bartels 2008; Brewer and Stonecash 2007; Gelman, et al. 2008; McCarty, et al. 2006; and Stonecash 2000. All are heavily quantitative in nature.

Bartels, Larry M. Unequal Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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In this study Bartels demonstrated that class still affects vote choice and argues that class differences are highly relevant in policy outcomes.
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Brewer, Mark D., and Jeffrey M. Stonecash. Split: Class and Cultural Divides in American Politics. Washington, DC: CQ, 2007.
DOI: 10.4135/9781483330532Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brewer and Stonecash argue that rather than class or cultural issues having relevance in American politics, both class and cultural concerns strongly impact contemporary American politics.
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Gelman, Andrew, David Park, Boris Shor, Joseph Bafumi, and Jeronimo Cortina. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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In what is largely a response to Thomas Frank, Gelman and his colleagues set out to unravel the paradox presented by the fact that individual survey data show that poor Americans are more likely to support Democrats, while the rich are more likely to vote Republican; however, state election results show that increasingly Democrats are winning rich states while Republicans increasingly carry the vote in poor states. Gelman and others use a variety of data to demonstrate that the individual level rich/poor divide tends to be much starker in poor states, while in rich states the wealthy are less supportive of Republican candidates, likely due to social issues. An influential book.
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McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Boston: MIT, 2006.
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This should really be read in tandem with Bartels 2008, as they make similar arguments. McCarty and his colleagues use quantitative data from a variety of sources to argue that the increased levels of partisan polarization in the United States are intimately related to corresponding increases in economic inequality and immigration.
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Stonecash, Jeffrey M. Class and Party in American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000.
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In a study than can be seen as starting the revival of class as continuing to be relevant in American politics, Stonecash demonstrates that class as measured by income continues to strongly affect vote choice in the United States.
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The Evolving Significance of Class

Finally, there are some studies demonstrating that class is politically relevant today in different ways than in the New Deal era. Michael Hout, Clem Brooks, and Jeff Manza are the predominant scholars here. Measuring class based on occupational categories, these scholars find that significant shifts in class-based voting behavior have occurred since the New Deal era, such as professionals moving from a Republican position to a strongly Democratic position and self-employed workers moving from a centrist position to a strongly Republican one. The important works to reference here are Brooks and Manza 1997; Hout, et al. 1995; Manza and Brooks 1999, and Manza and Brooks 2008. Taking a different approach, the conservative scholar Charles Murray argues in Murray 2012 that the American lower and upper classes are now so different from one another in values and behaviors that they represent two different societies within the United States. Murray argues that this differentiation has grave implications for the future of American society.

Brooks, Clem, and Jeff Manza. “Class Politics and Political Change in the United States, 1952–1992.” Social Forces 76 (1997): 379–408.
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In this piece Brooks and Manza build on Hout, et al. 1995. Using ANES data, Brooks and Manza argue that social class remains a significant factor in individual vote choice, although the voting behavior of certain social classes has changed since the New Deal era. Specifically, the self-employed have shifted to the GOP based on class issues, as have unskilled workers to a lesser extent. On the other hand, professionals have moved toward the Democratic Party due to their increasingly liberal views on social issues.
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Hout, Michael, Clem Brooks, and Jeff Manza. “The Democratic Class Struggle in the United States, 1948–1992.” American Sociological Review 60 (1995): 805–828.
DOI: 10.2307/2096428Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the first works in the 1990s to use empirical data (ANES) to make the case that social class remained an important influence on vote choice in the United States. Total class remained stable, while certain classes had changed their partisan allegiances from the New Deal model. Specifically, professionals and non-managerial white-collar workers shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats in presidential elections, while the self-employed and the managerial class moved in the opposite direction. Blue-collar workers went from allegiance to the Democratic Party to a swing group.
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Manza, Jeff, and Clem Brooks. Social Cleavages and Political Change: Voter Alignments and U.S. Party Coalitions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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In this book Manza and Brooks examine the place of four prominent social cleavages—class, religion, sex, and race—in contemporary American elections. Chapter 3 on social class is the most relevant here. The findings are primarily the same as those described in the two articles summarized immediately above.
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Manza, Jeff, and Clem Brooks. “Class and Politics.” In Social Class. Edited by Annette Lareau and Dalton Conley, 201–231. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008.
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In Chapter 7 of this edited volume Manza and Brooks examine the class-based differences in terms participation, vote choice, and the financing of American elections. The literature review here is excellent.
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Murray, Charles. Coming Apart: The Story of White America, 1960–2010. New York: Crown Forum, 2012.
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Building on years of work, Murray argues that lower-class Americans have strayed so far from what he calls the “founding virtues” of marriage, industriousness, honest, and religiosity that they are now a group dependent on government social welfare programs, with little hope for the future. In this study Murray analyzes whites only to avoid some of the criticism he received in response to previous work.
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Social Class and Political Participation

It is widely recognized the social class influences levels of political participation, with those of lower social class participating at lower levels than those of higher social class. This may not have been true in 19th-century America as demonstrated by McGerr 1986, but this relationship between class and participation has been consistent throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Education has proven particularly important in stimulating political participation, although income levels and occupational type are quite relevant as well. There are ways of reducing the class-based participation gap (mostly through mobilizing institutions such as political parties, labor unions, membership groups, and churches), but American politics is a game much more consistently played by the upper and middle classes than by the lower class. Many studies have documented this class-based difference in participation, but the most important are Leighley and Nagler 2014; Manza and Brooks 2008, cited under Evolving Significance of Class; Piven and Cloward 1988; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Schlozman, et al. 2012; Verba, et al. 1995; and Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980.

Leighley, Jan E., and Jonathan Nagler. Who Votes Now? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
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In this study inspired by the seminal Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980, Leighley and Nagler use primarily (but not exclusively) US Census Bureau (CPS) data and ANES data to demonstrate that there are substantial class-based differences in voter turnout and that these differences have real-world effects, as those who vote and those who do not possess different policy preferences and goals.
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McGerr, Michael E. The Decline of Popular Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
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In this study McGerr carefully explains what happened with highly participatory and inclusive electoral politics of the latter half of the 19th century. Useful in understanding some of the prescriptions for increasing lower-class participation in politics.
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Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard Cloward. Why Americans Don’t Vote. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
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In this historical and empirical study, Piven and Cloward argue that since the early 20th century many measures have been put in place that reduce voting by the lower class in the United States. They argue that the American lower classes have been “effectively disenfranchised” by these mechanisms, and that the lower turnout rates among less affluent Americans matter in terms of both election and policy outcomes.
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Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
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In this seminal study Rosenstone and Hansen use a variety of data sources to document declining political participation in the United States since 1960 and to argue that the primary reason for this decline has been a dramatic reduction in mobilization efforts. For Rosenstone and Hansen, mobilization is the key to participation. Class enters in here as growing inequality exacerbates class-based differences in political participation.
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Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady. Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.
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In this lengthy study, Schlozman and others turn once again to the subject of political voice in the United States and again find that the distribution of said voice across American society is grossly unequal. Those in lower classes almost always end up the short end of the political voice spectrum. The authors concentrate heavily on description and documentation, outlining the contours of unequal political voice across the vast environment of American politics. The study closes with an examination of possible solutions to the problem of unequal voice in American politics.
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Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. Voice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
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In their initial examination of political voice in the United States, Verba and others use the original Citizen Participation Sample (over 15,000 telephone interviews and over 2,500 follow-up in-person interviews) to document the dramatic inequality in political voice among the citizenry. Although some institutions such as labor unions and churches can and do mitigate these class-based differences in voice, the bottom line is that the haves speak a lot louder than the have-nots in American politics.
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Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Steven J. Rosenstone. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980.
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In the seminal study (there are many seminal studies in this section) of what drives differences in voter turnout, Wolfinger and Rosenstone use US Census Bureau (CPS) data from 1972–1974 to determine that those with resources vote at much higher levels than those without. Simply put, class matters in who votes and who does not.
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Class and Access to Political Power

One could certainly make the case that differential rates of political participation matter in and of themselves, but most attention devoted to participation levels is linked to concerns over access to political power. And because social class is so closely tied to political participation in modern American politics, the natural issue to close this essay with is the relationship of social class to access to political power. One early attempt at assessing this matter, the classic Dahl 1961 indicated that at least in New Haven, Connecticut, access to political power was relatively widely dispersed. Those who would be considered the haves of New Haven did indeed have some advantage in terms of access to political clout and influence, but it was not in any way overwhelming. Other scholars writing at roughly the same time as Dahl were far less sanguine about access to political power being widely dispersed across class lines. Mills 1959 argued that a small number of elites—most of whom were wealthy—controlled economic, military, and political power in the United States. Kolko 1962 and Domhoff 1967 were both studies purporting to demonstrate that the ultra-wealthy controlled power—political and otherwise—in the United States. The previously discussed Schattschneider 1960 also argued that the lower classes were at a severe disadvantage in terms of access to political power, for a variety of reasons. More recent studies raise similar concerns. Bartels 2008 (cited under Continuing Significance of Class); McCarty, et al. 2006 (cited under Continuing Significance of Class); and Schlozman, et al. 2012 (cited under Social Class and Political Participation) works discussed in the previous two sections all present arguments and evidence that members of the lower class have less say in government and less access to political power. Ferguson 1995 conducted a study demonstrating that wealthy Americans’ greater ability to contribute to election campaigns brought them outsized access to political power, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United dramatically increased the ability of the wealthy to fund election campaigns. In a study of policy preferences and policy outcomes Gilens 2005 found that affluent Americans got their desired policy outcomes far more often than poor or middle-class Americans did. Using data on Congress and state legislatures, Carnes 2013 argues that working-class Americans are increasingly shut out of legislative seats and that this results in fewer policies aimed at benefitting lower and working-class Americans. Hacker and Pierson 2010 argues that the small group at the top of the income distribution have gained increasing control of American politics since the 1980s. Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (Stiglitz 2012) has gone so far as to argue that American democracy is in danger because of the increasing consolidation of political power in the hands of the richest 1 percent of Americans. This is obviously an important matter, and undoubtedly the most important discussed in this essay. In many ways it brings us back to the thoughts of Aristotle that opened this article: does the type of government exhibited by a particular society depend on which social class holds the political power?

Carnes, Nicholas. White Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226087283.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Carnes documents that working-class Americans are represented in Congress and state legislatures in ever-dwindling numbers and makes a compelling case that this development has resulted in fewer economic policies designed to benefit the less affluent.
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Dahl, Robert A. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961.
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A classic study examining access to and distribution of political power in New Haven, Connecticut. Found that the power was relatively widely dispersed, offering support for the pluralist theory of American politics.
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Domhoff, G. William. Who Rules America? Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967.
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In this highly influential study, Domhoff uses a wide variety of data to make that argument that the United States is ruled by a small “social upper class which owns a disproportionate amount of the country’s wealth, receives disproportionate amount of the country’s yearly income, and contributes a disproportionate number of its members to positions of leadership” (p. 9). This argument, while controversial, continues to shape discussion of and research in class and American politics.
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Ferguson, Thomas. Golden Rule. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
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Ferguson argued that “to discover who rules, follow the gold” (p. 8). Tracing the source of campaign contributions, Ferguson came to the conclusion that wealthy interests in the United States had a significant advantage in terms of financing elections, thereby obtaining greater access to political power.
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Gilens, Martin. “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (2005): 778–796.
DOI: 10.1093/poq/nfi058Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examining data on policy preferences and policy outcomes between 1981 and 2002, Gilens found that when preferred policy outcomes differed by income level, the affluent were far more likely to get their desired policy outcome than the lower or the middle classes.
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Hacker, Jacob S., and Paul Pierson. Winner-Take-All Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
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Two respected academics writing for a non-academic audience, Hacker and Pierson marshal significant evidence to support their argument that the wealthy in the United States have used their advantages to gain control of American politics and government, and have in turn used this control to reshape the American economy to work even more in their favor and against the interests of the less affluent. A highly influential work.
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Kolko, Gabriel. Wealth and Power in America. New York: Praeger, 1962.
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Kolko’s primary aim here is to document that, despite claims of a new era of equality in the United States, social and economic inequality remains rampant. Moreover, Kolko argues such inequalities are systemic in the United States, and are unlikely to change without substantial effort.
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Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
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In this book Mills famously argued that a small group of Americans who shared a variety of social connections controlled political, economic, and military power, and this controlled the United States itself (thus the term “power elite”). Mills was criticized for being imprecise in his definitions and less than systematic with his data, but this study is important to the study of class and American politics.
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Schattschneider, E. E. The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960.
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In his classic critique of pluralist theory, Schattschneider argues that the rules of the game are stacked heavily in favor of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. In one of the most famous quotes in political science, Schattschneider states that “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent” (p. 35).
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Stiglitz, Joseph E. The Price of Inequality. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012.
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Another prominent academic (Nobel Prize in economics) writing for a non-academic audience, Stiglitz argues that the wealthiest Americans have used their advantages to take control of American government, threatening American representative democracy itself. The book closes with recommendations for change.
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