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TABLE 5.4: Social Bases of Party Support

Attraction
Concentration
Reflection

Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD

First Part of Time Period (circa 1950-1956)

Occupation

(N = 118)
0.66
0.23
0.22
0.22
0.5
0.72

Religion

(N = 66)
0.53
0.30
0.40
0.29
0.29
1.25

Ethnicity

(N = 40)
0.47
0.36
0.56
0.35
0.01
2.14

Region

(N = 113)
0.67
0.27
0.23
0.28
0.67
0.27

Urban-rural

(N = 100)
0.70
0.28
0.26
0.29
0.62
0.69

Education

(N = 63)
0.76
0.19
0.23
0.24
0.73
0.26

Attraction
Concentration
Reflection

Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD

Second Part of Time Period (circa 1957-1962)

Occupation

(N = 129)
0.68
0.22
0.22
0.21
0.52
0.66

Religion

(N = 76)
0.53
0.30
0.37
0.30
0.33
1.18

Ethnicity

(N = 45)
0.52
0.35
0.53
0.34
0.13
2.04

Region

(N = 122)
0.72
0.23
0.19
0.24
0.72
0.24

Urban-rural

(N = 101)
0.72
0.24
0.26
0.28
0.67
0.56

Education

(N = 72)
0.76
0.19
0.23
0.24
0.72
0.27


less attractive, more concentrative, and less reflective of religious groupings than occupational groupings, which conforms nicely to their hypothesis. Many of our countries, not scored on religion, however, display great religious homogeneity. If included in the scoring, they would reduce these differences between religion and occupation. In principle, one might attempt to assess intrafaith conflict or the intensity of religious belief as a basis for party differentiation, but the data rarely are available to allow such judgments to be made. Consequently, our measures of religious support detect primarily (but not exclusively) evidence of interfaith rather than intrafaith differences, and the set of parties so scored is far smaller than that for occupation. Because the attraction, concentration, and reflection statistics are based on substantially different numbers of parties, we should be cautious in making comparisons across the cultural differentiators. Strictly speaking, such comparisons should be limited to sets of parties scored on the same differentiators, for example, to parties in the same country, but some deviations from the ideal should be tolerable.

Coding Results: Ethnicity-Language-Race*

Ethnic and linguistic subcultures have much the same systematic impact as religious divisions. Converse contends that major ethnic heterogeneity "where it occurs . . . seems to be expressed in partisan cleavages as persistently and vigorously as religious differentiation and deserve equal priority for investigation" (1968, p. 279).

Ethnic and linguistic boundaries frequently coincide with religious, regional, and/or status differentiation but comprise nonetheless a valuable cultural dimension for analysis. As Converse points out, moreover, "there is room for a good deal of systematic comparative work in contrasting situations" where the degree of such coincidence varies.

It is useful to regard ethnic and linguistic differences as part and parcel of communal differentiation, to use Rose and Urwin's term (1969). Whereas different ethnic groups may speak the same language, as in the United States, and distinct lingual communities may be ethnically undifferentiable, as in Norway, the existence in a country of cohesive subcultures gives rise to much the same phenomena whether these communities are based on ethnicity, on language, or on both. Where ethnic and linguistic subcultures coincide, cleavage is apt to be intensified, and the fact of their coincidence is therefore noteworthy. But, even where they do not, the issues raised are sufficiently similar to justify the incorporation of ethnic and language groupings into the same basic variable. In either case, as Rose and Urwin suggest, the issues are nonbargainable, and the strains placed on the system are the same.

Our practice in choosing ethnicity, language, or race for scoring parties on this "communalism" dimension was again to produce maximum differentiation among the parties. When confronted with the choice of ethnicity or language for scoring the parties in Uganda, therefore, we chose ethnicity, which coincided perfectly with the Kabaka Yekka Party, whereas language-a possible alternative-did not produce the same sharp cleavages.


*Gilbert Rotkin assisted in writing this section.

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