THE ROLE OF THE FRANCHISE

The social mobilization and cultural heterogeneity factors are related to the specific historical context and its traditions. It is unlikely that any generalized notion of “industrial society,” conceived as a syndrome of structural/cultural features, will help to delineate the contextual political responses of the early phase. Similarly, the inhibiting capacity of cultural heterogeneity on the development of the left is unlikely to make its impact felt clearly in the very early phase of electoral development. It performs better as a limiting condition over the long term or as a potential boundary for mature socialist movements. While the long-term forces of assimilation and standardization may ultimately create similarities and bring about a leveling of both the social structure and cultural attitudes of industrial societies, in the very early phase of mass politics the opposite is more likely: The contextual features of presocial mobilization are more important than long-term developmental forces. Therefore, in the course of this book, I will consider more context-related factors.

The development of political rights, in particular the right to vote, was the end result of a long historical process going back to the eighteenth century and was rooted in the development of civic rights. Civic rights developed primarily in relation to the market as rights of property, contract, unrestricted choice of residence and workplace, and so on. Civic rights also refer to the potential for associability in a society when they touch on freedom of faith, thought, speech, assembly, and association. The combination of these civic rights constituted the point of departure for the opening up of political public space and opinion.