Votes and Strata: the Growing Social Stratification of the Colombian Party System in the 21st Century

Since the end of the twentieth century, the weakening of the traditional class cleavage in the electoral behavior of Western democracies has become evident; however, studies are scarcer for third-wave democracies. Colombia is an interesting case as it shows signs of a consolidating partisan system since the political reform of 2003. Based on an analysis of the vote by socio-economic stratum in the five largest cities in the last four legislative elections, we find that this country shows, contrary to international trends, a tendency towards greater social segmentation of the vote, and we propose some interpretations in this regard.