Episode 14 - Liesbet Hooghe. The Transnational Cleavage

Transformation of European Politics Podcast

In this episode, I talk to Liesbet Hooghe who is W.R Kenan Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We discuss her article “Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage”, which is co-authored with Gary Marks and was published in the Journal of European Public Policy in 2018. The article investigates if Lipset/Rokkan’s famous cleavage theory can help explain the transformation of the European political space in the past 40 years. It postulates that a new transnational cleavage has emerged that primarily surrounds questions of immigration and European integration. The European financial and the so-called refugee crisis have worked as a catalyst for this cleavage. In contrast to the emergence of cleavages in the 19th country, today, fully developed party systems already exist. As established parties cannot easily adjust their positions to integrate the new cleavage, new party families have emerged. If you want to know more about Liesbet and her research, you can follow her on Twitter “at” HoogheLiesbet or visit her website http://hooghe.web.unc.edu/. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Reading recommendation: Ostrom, Elinor (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/governing-the-commons/A8BB63BC4A1433A50A3FB92EDBBB97D5