Conflict Theories

Conflicting Theories Two theories presented within the literature on the independent impacts of gender and religion respectively seem to conflict with each other. Various authors made the argument that it is a widely-observed phenomenon for staunch Republican women to vote Democrat when having the choice between a man and woman candidate. This seemingly counters the argument made by religious cleavage scholars that state that women who vote for right-wing parties are typically motivated by religious interest due to contention with left-wing social policies. Both theories could be applicable, however there are a few notable explanations that can be presented for either side. The women that are voting for candidates solely based upon their …show more content…
There is an overwhelming lack of specific research on cleavage politics within Canada, it is difficult to find academic sources relating to numbers pertaining specifically to Canadian party systems and the dominant religious institutions within Canada. In this paper the lack of specific research was circumvented by employing data relating to Western democracies across the world to provide a more holistic view of how cleavages impact the left-right spectrum rather than party choices, although parties were used where data was …show more content…
There is a substantial need for exit polls and other forms of data to help confirm cleavage stereotypes and provide a more concrete view of the interests of various groups, for example, more polling in American election districts with a male Republican and female Democrat. These types of exit polls would help to fine tune the theories presented earlier by providing data on the other cleavages that play a role in that type of voting behaviour, such a race or class. A future literature review with a much larger scope could make inquiries into how other cleavages factor into this debate, perhaps a look at the impacts of class and race on groups within religious and gender cleavages would provide more insight for the inconsistencies found within the literature reviewed within this