Educational Networks, Social Closure, and Cleavage Stabilization

Abstract

Debates about the nature of a deepening educational divide in politics tend to focus on education as an individual-level characteristic, whether as a marker of skill endowment, an experience instilling certain values, or the consequence of self-selection based on earlier socialization. We instead look at how education (both level and field) relates to political outcome variables as a feature of social networks. We take cleavage-theoretical perspectives on the educational divide one step further by treating individuals not as atomistic entities but as embedded in social structure. Using original surveys from Germany, the UK, and Switzerland, we show that educational divides are diminished in the presence of countervailing networks. Looking at vote preference and indicators of social closure like group identity, this study suggests that segregated social networks contribute to stabilizing contemporary cleavage structures, even as the mass social and political organizations that shaped twentieth century cleavage politics have declined.