Social Position and Interest Recognition: The Voter in Broadview, or Are Voters Fools?

In a brief footnote in Political Man, S.M. Lipset argued that political scientists had, in the past, approached the phenomenon of electoral change in terms of its being “a rational reaction to new situations or factors.” Sociologists and social psychologists who had channelled their endeavours in this directtion, on the other hand, had, Lipset argued, placed emphasis elsewhere: when it came to explanations of the vote, group pressures and the fulfilment of personal needs were first in their repertoire.