Structure versus culture again: Corporatism and the ‘new politics’ in 16 Western European countries

Abstract. Various authors have hypothesized that corporatist institutional arrangements favor the development of ‘new politics’: new social movements, concern for issues such as peace and ecology, postmaterialist orientation and voting for left-libertarian parties. This article analyzes the relationships between corporatism and ‘new politics’ using Siaroff's (1999) corporatism scores for 16 West European countries and data from Inglehart et al.'s (1998) World Value Survey. The results of the analysis show that corporatism is related to higher membership in peace movements and also to belief in the urgency of ecological problems. However, it is unrelated to postmaterialist values, votes for ‘new parties’, approval of the environmentalist and feminist movements, and willingness to contribute financially to environmental protection. The relationships between corporatism and ‘new politics’ is shown to be somewhat mediated by economic factors, while the hypothesis that postmaterialism is a principal factor behind the popularity of the new social movements is not substantiated.