Participation crisis Flashcards
What is a participation crisis?
A lack of engagement with the political system, for example where a large number of people choose not to vote, join a political party or stand for office.
Themes for a participation crisis essay
1) Party membership.
2) Voter turnout.
3) Other methods of political participation e.g. pressure groups.
What is the evidence that we do have a participation crisis: Party membership
1) The conservatives party has around 132,000 members which has massively dropped since mid 90s where they had around 400,000 and mid 50s where they had 2.8m members. Likewise in the 50s labour had 1 million in 2016 they had 500,000 and now they have 370,000.
2) Only 1.6% of the electorate belong to one of the three major parties whereas in 1983 it was 3.8%.
What is the evidence that we do not have a participation crisis: Party membership
1) Labour party membership increased in the run-up to the 1997 election but fell while the party was in government to 190,000 members. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader has been associated with a remarkable increase in membership of 515,000 by July 2016 likely due to £3 membership fee created by Ed Miliband.
2) The liberal democrats had about 70,000 members in the early 2000s. This fell to 49,000 during the 2010-2015 coalition with the conservatives. In 2016, they had recovered to about 76,000 members and by 2017 claimed a membership exceeding 82,000.
What is the evidence that we have a participation crisis: Voter turnout
1) 2024 voter turnout in general election joint 2001 election in having the lowest voter turnout since 1918 with a voter turnout of 60%, whereas in 1945 - 1997 the average voter turnout was 76%.
2) Low voter turnout for PCC, in 2012 PCC (police and crime commissioner) election had an average turnout of 15%, although this did improve in 2016 with a voter turnout of 27% but this is still very low.
3) Voter turnout in second order elections is also very low as well as in local elections in 2016 the average local election vote was 33.8%.
4) In by elections voter turnout is low as people don’t care as much as they aren’t choosing a government. In February 2017, in the stoke-on-trent by election only 38.2% of the electorate voted this is significantly less than the already low voter turnout of 49.9% for the seat in the 2015 general election.
What is the evidence that we do not have a participation crisis: Voter turnout
1) 2014 Scottish independence referendum had a voter turnout of 84.6% and the 2016 EU referendum had voter turnout of 72.2% showing significant engagement surrounding critical issues.
2) ‘Happathy’ suggests an alternative view to apathy in which it means that people are generally content and therefore don’t push for change which could explain how voter turnout in 2001 and 2005 was pretty low.
What is evidence that we do have a participation crisis: Other forms of participation
1) Other forms of participation are often less effective. A common form of alternative routes of participation is signing petitions however these are often unsuccessful even when many sign for example, the most signed petition in UK history with 6.1 million signatures asking for the revocation of article 50 and for the UK to remain in the EU in March 2019 was rejected.
What is evidence that we do not have a participation crisis: Other forms of participation
1) Many people decide to participate in politics through protests and demonstrations. In February 2003 the UK had its largest political demonstration in UK history with 1.5-2million people marching in Hyde park against the Iraq war. This was organised by the stop the war coalition which is a pressure group. Pressure groups are also another form of participation.
2) E-petitons with more than 100,000 signatures get debated in the house of commons.
3) There has been an increased use of e-democracy. For example use of e-petitions are an increasing method used to spread public opinion for example the 2007 downing street website e-petition against proposals for road charging was signed by 1.8million people.
What is a second order election?
An election that is not electing a new national government. Usually more regional elections or electing a local government through devolution.
