The End of Class Politics?

The last few decades has seen a prolonged debate over the nature and importance of social class as a basis for ideology class voting and class politics. The prevailing assumption is that in western societies class inequalities are no longer important in determining political behaviour. In The End of Class Politics? leading scholars from the US UK and Europe argue that the evidence on which the assumptions about the decline importance of class is based is unfounded. Instead the book argues that the class basis of political competition has to some degree evolved but not declined. Furthermore the social basis of political competition and sweeping claims about the new politics of postindustrial society need to be re-examined.