3.8 Political and Social Cleavages

Unit 3 - Political and Social Cleavages 

The topic of cleavages is often a very difficult one for students to understand, so I'll take extra care to make sure you have a very clear idea of what you need to know to be successful on the exam! 

Why is it important to study political and social cleavages? 📙

Understanding the social and political cleavages is crucial to fully capture the political landscape of a country. Cleavages can shape the way that certain groups interact with the government, which can have long-term implications to a regime and the interactions between citizens. There is also a power dynamics between these groups in a nation, and that can be reflected in politics. So, without further ado, let's get into it: 

3.8: Political and Social Cleavages

Here are a couple of important definitions: 

**Cleavages—**Social and political cleavages are internal divisions that structure society and may be based on class, ethnicity, religion, and/or territory.  

**Coinciding Cleavages—**When every dispute aligns the same groups against each other, these disputes are likely to be explosive. 💥 

**Cross-Cutting Cleavages—**When divisions in a society split into many potential groups that may conflict on one issue but cooperate on another. These tend to keep social conflict to more moderate levels.

** In the simplest of terms, social cleavages are internal divisions in society based on differences in class, ethnicity, religion, and/or territory. A political cleavage is when social cleavages become politicized, the political cleavages then impact political culture and political behavior and values and cause tensions and conflicts in politics. **

Here is an example using the United States: 🇺🇸 

• There is a social cleavage between the North and the South in regards to economics and social values. These values have become politicized in that if you look at modern elections the Southern states tend to vote almost exclusively as a Republican block, while Northern states tend to vote almost exclusively as a Democratic block. This is a generalization as we know there are swing states, like Florida, that change. But, the reason Florida is a swing state is because of the high numbers of Northerners that have moved to the state over the years.

It is important to keep in mind that different cleavages have different demands, and can be separated into the following:

• Separatists ↔️ - group within a society that seeks separation from the larger group or state. These movements may emerge if a group feels that their identity, culture and/or interests are not being protected from the larger state.
• Autonomy-seeking 👣 - group within a society that wants to purse greater self-governance/autonomy. In some cases, these groups only want more representation and respect towards their identity. In others, they may want separate bodies of governance.
• Ethnic 👤 - refers to a division within a society based on ethnicity. It may create tensions if the group at hand does not feel recognized or respected by other ethnicities. This type of cleavage may fall into a separatist or autonomy-seeking group, depending on their demands. You will read below that this type of cleavage causes great tensions in Mexico and Nigeria. Next, we will describe politically relevant social cleavages in our core countries.

Country Cleavages

You read in this guide that social cleavages are important to be studied because they have great political implications. In the next guide we will discuss more in depth the challenges posed by social and political divisions ➡️