By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source (Nieuwbeerta & Ganzeboom 1996), this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences, rather than a decline of class voting proves responsible for the decline of the traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less, but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead – it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline of class voting, due to the widespread application of the Alford index.

In this paper we investigate the effects of political dissatisfaction, political distrust and ethnocentrism on support to the incumbent coalition in three different municipalities in Flanders. Theoretically, we define the concept of political trust, at which it is differentiated from political satisfaction and political alienation. At the same time, four dimensions of political distrust are disentangled: competence, integrity, responsiveness and justice. Empirically, four research questions may be distinguished. First, we investigate whether political satisfaction, political trust and ethnocentrism have an independent effect on support to the ruling majority. Second, we check whether there are differential effects of the dimensions of political trust on the dependent variable in the different municipalities.Third, we try to connect the micro-level data with macro-level, by linking the results with the characteristics of the local government and the party system. Fourth, we examine the influence of the presence of extreme right.