Influences on Voting Behaviour Flashcards
Influences on voting behaviour structure
Introduction Social Class Issue Voting Media (TV) New media (Social Media) Conclusion
Influences on voting behaviour introduction
- Traditionally social class most influential
- Middle class vote conservatives, working class voting Labour
- Rising influence of issues and media
- Change evident in Scotland
- Labour no longer dominate Scotland, now its SNP
- Scottish Conservatives are main opposition in SP
Social Class
K - Traditionally most influential with Peter Pulzer saying "class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail."
K- Social class is a set of people with similar attitudes towards life and politics in particular. For example, people in AB want more money, less taxes, whilst someone in DE wants more support from government.
An- Impact is that it has created set of core voters for both parties, shows strong link between social class and voting behaviour. Eg, in 2015, Conservatives won 1/2 AB votes whilst Labour only gained 1/4
K- Social class also impacts turnout, with higher classes being more likely to turnout Eg, East Renfrewshire is 3/4, Glasgow North East 1/2
An- Impact of this is that Conservatives able to rely on their core voters to turnout to vote and may be why they were so successful.
Eg in 2015, most votes for Conservatives were from natural supporters
Ev - Social class is still one of the biggest influences, the higher class you are, the more likely to vote Conservative.
Issue Voting
K - Social class is becoming less important as new group of middle class floating voters who aren’t loyal to any party is growing.
K- Eg, party membership decreasing. Conservative membership peaked in 1950s and has dropped to 5% of what it was at 134000.
An - Impact is causing dealignment. This is when voters do not vote for who they traditionally vote for.
Eg, in 2017, Conservatives gained a lot of DE votes from voters who work hard and resent paying high taxes. They are known as Blue Dog Conservatives
K - Issues such as education, economy, immigration are important and voters will depend vote based on policies.
K - 2017 GE was known as ‘Brexit Election’ where 2/3 people said Brexit was the biggest issue facing the UK.
An - 2017 Brexit GE cut across normal party loyalties with many DE leavers switching to Conservatives and many AB remainers switching to Labour.
Eg, 1.1 million Pro-EU voters switched directly from Conservatives to Labour
Ev -Therefore, social class is becoming decreasingly important as floating voters grow and parties and having to become ‘catch-all’ parties to gain votes.
Television (Media)
K - Influential as a majority of adults claim that TV is main source of political news.
- Known as being reliable and news broadcasts have to be impartial as regulated by Ofcom
- An example of influence is after Nick Clegg won leaders debates in 2010 and vote share raised by 11%.
An - There is no direct link to voting behaviour
- By the time election day had come, the Liberal Democrats’ vote share had only risen by 1%
An- A half of people say they already choose what party to vote for before Party Election Broadcasts, so TV only influences floating voters.
Ev - Therefore, TV is trusted and used but doesn’t translate into votes.
- Floating voters are growing though so it may become more influential.
Social Media (New Media)
K- Influential as twitter accounts of political bodies have millions of followers
- Reuters found that 16-24 year olds use social media as main source of news
An- 2015 GE was meant to be the ‘social media election’, but if it had such an influence, Labour would have won
- Many say it only follows an election, but doesn’t lead it.
Ev- Only influence young people, and since young people are least likely to turnout to vote, it is hardly influential.
Influence of Voting Behaviour Conclusion
- Social class is important as parties still have their core voters
- Other factors’ influence is increasing as voters are becoming more volatile
- Resulting in very unpredictable election results such as the recent EU referendum and the 2017 general election
