POLITICIZATION OF THE ELECTORATE IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES.

This article studies the relations of voters to parties in France and the U.S. which follow different courses of political development. Profound ideological cleavages in France, the occasional threat of civil war, rather strong voter turnout, the instability of governments and republics, and the rise and fall of "flash" parties like the R.P.F. in 1951, the Poujadists in 1956, and the U.N.R. in 1958 have all contributed to the impression of a peculiar intensity in the tenor of French political life. Demographically, French society differs from the American in its lesser urbanization and lower mean formal education. Intranational studies have persistently shown higher political involvement among urban residents and, more strongly still, among people of more advanced education. An attempt has been made in this paper to examine comparative data on the French and American publics in an effort to determine more precisely the locus of Franco-American differences in these matters. Locus will be considered in qualitative terms, covering an extended series of political characteristics which run from expressions of involvement, acts of participation and information seeking to orientations whereby the voter links party alternatives to the basic ideological issues in the society.