Uticaj institucionalnih činilaca na nacionalne, verske i lingvističke rascepe u Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu i Švajcarskoj tokom različitih stranačkih era

The following work aims to answer this research question: “Did the system of governance, the electoral system, the party system and the institution of the head of state in the United Kingdom and Switzerland influence and shape the development of socio-political cleavages which are based on religious, linguistic and national differences during the era of elite, mass, people’s and professional parties, and if so, in what way?” Such a question sets the influence that an institutional framework has on social cleavages as the broad study subject, while political institutions and historical socio-political cleavages within the United Kingdom and Switzerland can be thought of as the narrower fields of interest. Starting with an institutionalist theoretical assumption according to which institutions influence structures such as socio/political cleavages, this work uses the methods of historical tracing and most different systems design to compare two states with different institutional arrangements, but similar social structures, throughout different twentieth and twenty-first century party eras, so that it could inquire into the existence of a potential correlation and casual relationship between a) different institutional arrangement and b) different development of the structural foundations of social cleavages in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The results show that such a correlation may potentially exist.