UK Democracy and Participation Flashcards
What evidence is there that the UK is in a political participation crisis?
. Despite the 2024 Labour landslide victory, there was around a 60% turnout, the lowest voter turnout since 2001, due to conservative failures. Turnout has been decreasing since the 1950s.
. A severe increase in political turmoil and disillusionment - since 2016 we’ve had 6 PMs, 2 backbench MPS assassinated, Partygate, Johnson’s promotion of Chris Pincher (a man accused of SA).
. There’s a lack of political education for youth leading to low voter turnout for those in their 20s, young people seem sceptical about whether voting makes a difference.
. Class dealignment - Families previously had been proudly and consistently Labour or Conservative. Now there is much more fluidity in the class system, with voters weighing up their options and being less likely to be loyal to one party.
What evidence is there that the UK is not in a political participation crisis?
. Brexit had a massive turnout of 72.2%. About 64% of registered voters aged 18-24 went to polls, contradicting claims of apathy among the youth.
. The 2019 General election also had a good turnout of 67.3%.
. People are highly involved in protests, boycotts, social media activism, petitions and pressure groups e.g the National Trust which had more members than all the UK political parties combined.
What factors effect voting behaviour?
Age, gender, class, wealth, ethnicity, jobs, manifesto pledges, party leaders, media, party identification, family influence.
Why are the theories surrounding media influence?
Direct influence theory - That media has a direct influence on the outcome of elections and can persuade and impact voters significantly.
Reinforcement theory - That media reinforces existing views but does not majorly change voting patterns.
How is media used to influence people’s voting?
Social media plays a key part, e.g in the 2017 General election, Labour used social media like Twitter to counter a huge Conservative advertising budget.
Media outlets can also set political agendas, with newspapers often running their own campaigns e.g the Sun endorsing Blair in 1997 and the Daily Mail endorsing the Conservatives in 2019.
What does First Past The Post entail?
It generally results in 1 party getting an overall majority and therefore being able to enable its manifesto pledges. Minority parties usually lose out, votes are wasted in ‘safe seats’, coalition governments are rare, tactical voting occurs and the system means that the Labour Party and the Conservatives dominate. It’s used in UK General Elections and local council elections.
What does Party List Proportional Representation entail?
A group of MPs are elected in one big area. Candidates are ranked, with leaders at the top. It is used in Israel and the European Parliament elections. A disadvantage is that it doesn’t consist of local constituencies, which stops people from being able to develop relationships with their MPS.
What does the Additional Member System entail?
It’s a hybrid of FPTP and PLPR. Voters have 2 ballot papers and 2 votes, one with a list of candidates standing to represent their constituency and another with the list of parties standing for election in that region. It’s used for electing members to the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments. It keeps MPs representing their constituencies which is an advantage,.
What does the Single Transferable Vote system entail?
Multi member constituencies have voters rank their choices in order of preference. A candidate who has more 1st preference votes than the quota is elected with their surplus votes being transferred to 2nd Preference candidates. It is used in Scottish local government elections. Its advantage is that no votes are wasted and it has a fair vote distribution. But it is complicated and acts against definitive choices.
