Is there a participation crisis

Question 1

What would you write in your first paragraph?

Answer 1

• low turnout rate at elections undermines the legitimacy of results
• the turnout rate at the 2015 general election was 66.1% as opposed to the 1970s where it reached 78.8% in 1974 or the 1950s with a turnout rate of nearly 80% or 1945 with a 72% turnout rate
• however, in the 1950s, it could be argued that situational factors affected voting due to England recovering from the war i.e NHS being made in 1945
• it is important that the turnout rate is high so that the government has a legitimate mandate to enact the policies on their manifesto.
• turnout rate at other elections tend to be lower the 2012 police and crime commissioner elections had a turnout rate of 15% which was even lower than the previous record set of by the 1999 European parliament elections of which 23% participated

Question 2

What would you write in your second paragraph?

Answer 2

There isn’t a participation crisis due to the influence of pressure groups

• participation can be electoral and non electoral and whilst turnout rate has decreased the number of pressure groups have grown considerably.
• for example the extinction rebellion and insulate Britain or the tax payers alliance(low tax society) have staged large-scale demonstration that have visibly highlighted the number of people who are interested in taking a political stand.
• they have proven to be successful in their demands, one of which the extinction rebellion argued that the UK should be have zero emissions by 2025 of which Diane Abbot of the labour party argued conversations need to be had and that ‘we can move towards the 2025 target’
• however, the power in pressure groups is controlled by unelected leaders. 55% of people interviewed by the Audit of political engagement said that in the last 6 months they had not voted, contacted representatives or taken part in a campaign and 31 % argued they would not take part in any of these even if they felt strongly about a particular issue

Question 3

What would you write in your third paragraph

Answer 3

Historically, membership of parties has declined as people have become less involved in politics
- In 2015, only 1.0% of the electorate was a member of the Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties
(compared with 3.8% in 1983).
- labour had over a million members in the 1950s but this dropped to around 193,000 in 2010.
- much like the conservatives who had 3 million in the 1950s which dropped to 130,000 - 150,000 by 2010
- this is due to partisan dealignment which could be due to numerous things such as historic or situational factors or changes in policies such as old vs new labour
- however, as of march 2017 labour’s membership grew by 528,000 and more ‘registered supporters’ paid to participate in the 2015 and 2016 leadership elections.

Question 4

what would you include in your fourth paragraph

Answer 4

• reform proposals have focused on increasing turnout making it easier to vote by: changing the day of elections to Thursday to the weekend a
• allowing people to vote anywhere in their constituency rather than a particular polling station
• allowing the vote to take place over numerous days
• two further suggests are to encourage a wider range of postal voting and introduce e-voting