Class analysis

Class analysis is research in sociology, politics and economics from the point of view of the stratification of the society into dynamic classes. It implies that there is no universal or uniform social outlook, rather that there are fundamental conflicts that exist inherent to how society is currently organized.

Most known examples are the theory of Karl Marx and Max Weber's three-component theory of stratification.

Barrington Moore and political development

In a non-Marxist sense, class analysis is a theory of political development, in which political regimes and systems are said to be shaped by the social class structure of the country. The main advocate for this theory is political scientist Barrington Moore, Jr.. In Moore's theory, Great Britain gradually attained a stable democratic governance, compared to neighboring countries such as France and Germany, due to the rapid displacement of peasantry during the enclosure movement which fully transformed Britain into an advanced, industrial society with a strong bourgeois class, which Moore sees as indispensable for a lasting liberal democracy. In contrast, France had a large peasantry that is stationary on land yet politically volatile, leading to the alternating between violent revolutions and monarchical reactions.

See also

• Marxist analysis