Do Frozen Cleavages Ever Go Stale? The Bases of the Canadian and Australian Party Systems

The title of this paper derives from two sets of observations. The first, from Lipset and Rokkan, asserts that Western party systems reflect (or, at least, reflected in the mid-1960s) a congealment of political conflicts dating from the 1920s or earlier. The second, taken generally from the growing concern about political ungovernability, suggests that contemporary party systems are losing their capacity to structure choice effectively in Western polities. Since it is one of the defects of frozen food storage that any food, no matter how well frozen, will eventually become unappetizing if not downright unwholesome, it is worth enquiring whether the two sets of observations are interconnected. In a fast-changing world, party systems reflecting the shape of conflict over past problems may appear to the voter as out of touch with newer problems. Indeed, the party systems observed by Lipset and Rokkan have all been challenged subsequently by new forces.