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The New Class in Massachusetts: Politics in a Technocratic Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Extract
With the gradual disintegration of the Democratic Party's New Deal coalition there has been regular speculation on the nature of party dealignment and realignment in the USA. Realignment affects the various levels of government and regions of the country differentially as the political landscape responds to underlying demographic and economic patterns. Groups of voters may reassess their traditional loyalties as they find their own, or their party's, policy priorities changing. Recent gubernatorial elections in Massachusetts serve to illustrate some of the internal pressures on the Democratic Party as the country enters the post-industrial era. In spite of the Democratic Party's dominance of the state's politics these elections have served as a battleground between groups of voters whose interests and concerns coalesce in a way that no longer can be explained solely in terms of traditional class position or economic interest, but also represent a clash between competing lifestyles.
An emergent post-industrial social setting, such as can be observed in Massachusetts, may be identified as possessing a number of interrelated components.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985
References
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16 Survey taken for Edward J. King by Baraff, Morris & Mercurio Associates, March 1978.
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