STUDIE Different Measures of Social Class – Different Results of Class Voting? the Colombian Case

■ STUDIE Different Measures of Social Class – Different Results of Class Voting? The Colombian Case JAN PUMR* Různé přístupy k měření sociálních tříd – odlišné výsledky třídně podmíněného volebního chování? Případ Kolumbie Abstract: Class based electoral behaviour belongs to topics that have been subject of research for many decades; especially in developed Western countries. The class structure is a basis for class voting research. The EGP scheme is a most widespread model of social structure. This scheme is based on the employment structure; some authors prefer other models based for example. On the number of assets of each household or on the household income. This paper attempts to test different stratification models using the Colombia example to see whether class voting results will differ significantly or whether certain matches will be found. Keywords: Colombia; class voting; social class; household wealth; household income; EGP DOI: 10.14712/23363525.2021.2 Introduction In June 2018 the right wing won the presidential election in Colombia again. However what’s more important is the fact that it was a much more right-wing candidate than Juan Manuel Santos. Iván Duque, whose prominent supporter is former Colombian president and current senator Álvaro Uribe, defeated the leftist and progressive candidate Gustavo Petro in the second round of elections. Two important topics became a symbol of these elections accompagnied with fear. On the one hand, the issue of a peaceful agreement with the guerrilla group FARC-EP and the fear of Petro’s voters, that in the case of Duque’s victory, the peace treaty will be greatly revised resulting in the resumption of the civil war that has only recently ended after about 50 years. On the other hand, the theme of the economic system and development and the fear of Duque’s voters, that in the case of Petro’s victory, the new administration would introduce a socialist system, which would pave the way to a Venezuelan style major economic and humanitarian crisis. Moreover, this fear is exacer- bated by the enormous number of Venezuelan refugees who chose to flee to neighbouring countries away from the crisis, but most often in Colombia. What is the role of the class membership in this electoral result? The details are not yet available, but it is still possible to consider the past years experience. We can look back and examine whether there was any phenomenon in the past years that would explain the electoral behaviour of individual classes in Colombia. The first step in the investigation of class-based electoral behaviour is the choice of an appropriate stratification model. Any- way, which model of social class structure should we choose? * Mgr. Jan Pumr, Philosophical faculty of Hradec Králové University, Rokitanského 62, 500 03 Hradec Králové. E-mail: [email protected]. Researcher ID: V-4126-2018. © 2021 The Author. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 9 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE 1/2021 The goal of this article is twofold. At first it will offer a comparison of existing and most frequently used social class models and compare and analyze the results of class- based electoral behaviour using these models. The second goal is to examine the trans- formation of electoral behaviour in individual stratification models between 2006/7 and 2012/13. Why these years? The mentioned periods are relatively important milestones in modern history of Colombia. In 2006 and 2007, President Álvaro Uribe launched his second term when dynamics of the armed conflict between government units and the FARC-EP changed significantly. Reinforced military forces gained considerable successes, with the help of paramilitares having forced many guerrillas out of many territories. It was also a period of significant support from civilian population for president Uribe and his militant strategy [LaRosa – Mejía 2017]. 2012 and 2013 were the years of the beginning of peace negotiations between the Santos administration and the FARC-EP, which finally led to the signing of the peace agreements in September 2016 in Cartagena. At the same time, the article brings up a few questions. Are the results of each model significantly different, or are there some consistent features? And did the electoral behaviour change between 2006/7 and 2012/13 in each stratification model of the social classes? Is there any explanation for the voting behaviour of each social class? One hypothesis says that if we compare different stratification models, the first one based on occupation levels and the second one based on socio-economical levels, we can find certain consistent features. It is obvious that the service class (EGP) will include a lot of the same individuals of the highest class of the socio-economic model based on the wealth index. And the class of poor self-employed will share the same objectives and goals as the lowest class with low wealth index. Similar findings can also lead to a belief in the data reliability of the AmericasBarometer database, which of course would be very posi- tive. The area/region variables are also very important in the case of such a geographically diversified country as Colombia. Historically, there were many territories that the central government had no control over, due to very specific geographical conditions in Colombia, the presence of three mountain ranges, many small valleys or dense jungle [Safford – Pala- cios 2002]. Instead of the central government, in outlying regions local leaders have often wielded power and the traditional parties relied on them to secure the support in rural areas, which led to massive clientelism [Hartlyn – Dugas 1999] and influenced the voting behaviour. In some works, the conceptualization of a class analysis is also present. Although this article will not have such an ambition, it will present in the first part current and most used models of social structure and a short review of recent literature. The second part will cover the data, stratification models and methods which will be used to calculate the class voting in this article, and finally the third part will offer the results and analyzes of class-based behaviour in Colombia using different stratification models in 2006/7 and 2012/13. Actual approaches to measuring of social class Previous works are based mainly on the Marxist concept of class structure, where the people’s relationship to the means of production is of primarily importance. In a post-industrial society with service sector development, this concept is untenable, and therefore later works are more and more often working with the neo-Weberian concept of class 10 JAN PUMR Different Measures of Social Class – Different Results of Class Voting? The Colombian Case analysis that represents the social structure as a group of individuals who hold a similar position on the labour market (therefore, it is not directly related to the means of production) and thus have similar life chances [Breen 2005]. Currently, we can meet some of the most common variants. In Western Europe, where class voting has a longer tradition, and where more relevant data from questionnaire surveys are available, the authors usually use a more structured approach to social class measurement [Mainwaring – Torcal – Somma 2015]. This approach examines, in partic- ular, the employment position of an individual in the labour market. The main reason for using this concept is primarily the general awareness of the occupational profession as a clear sign of social status, in other words, it is an easy-to-understand indicator of the position of the individual within the social structure [Lambert – Bihagen 2012; Connelly – Gayle – Lambert 2016]. Also, this occupation-based measure is more stable and better reflects the inclusion of an individual in the social structure [Parkin 1971; Rose – Pevalin 2003; Goldthorpe – McKnight 2006]. One of the most widespread class schemes is the structure designed by Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (EGP). This scheme is the most influential model of social stratification in social sciences [Evans 1992]. However, in the questionnaire surveys in Lat- in American countries, such detailed information is not included, with a few exceptions, so it is not possible to monitor the development of class voting using the EGP scheme in individual years. Fortunately, this is not always the case, and with the example of Colombia we can also use this model of social structure. This scheme and its theoretical approach has become a basis for other similar schemes in social sciences, e.g. ESeC, NS-SEC [Connelly – Gayle – Lambert 2016: 4]. In 2015 Mainwaring et al. compiled a modified class scheme on the basis of the EGP scheme. To the current five categories (service class, petty bourgeoisie, routine non-manu- al, skilled and unskilled workers) they added the sixth, the poor self-employed. They argue that the EGP scheme was developed for Western post-industrial countries and that they do not fully reflect the specifics of other regions, in this case Latin America. The authors are right that the category of poor self-employed is crucial to understanding class structure in Latin America [Mainwaring – Torcal – Somma 2015]. Another way of measuring social class is the economic level of the individual. This approach has a tradition in the United States [Handlin 2013] and is most often measured either by household wealth or by household income. Some other authors [e.g. Savage et al. 2013; Lewis-Beck – Ratto 2013] also prefer research of the economic vote in Latin Amer- ica. According to Filmer and Pritchett these components of household wealth represent the long-term economic status of households and that eliminating short-term economic outages, such as household income, because of high degrees of income churning [Jarvis – Jenkins 1997; Filmer – Pritchett 2001; Jenkins – Van Kerm 2009].

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