Voting Behaviour Flashcards
write posters on 3 elections and all these factors.
What are the long term factors affecting voting behaviour?
Social Class, Gender, Ethnicity, Religion and Region. Age?
What is a floating voter?
Voters with few or no long-term party loyalities, who therefore vote for different parties in different elections.
What is class alignment?
When people associate themselves with a class and firmly believe that they belong to it.
What is partisan alignment?
When voters have a very strong, long-term connection with a political party and where their support for it is very certain irrespective of who leads it or policy modifications.
What is class dealignment?
The process by which individeuals no longer identify themselves as belonging to a certain class.
What is partisan dealignment?
The process by which individuals no longer identify themselves on a long-term basis as being associated with a certain political party.
What are the social classes in the UK?
Class A, B, C1, C2, D, E
Class A is Higher Managerial and Professional workers. Class E is Unemployed, pensioners and people unable to work.
In the 60s, what did voting look like?
In 1964-1966, 64% of working class (Class C2, D and E) voted for Labour. 62% of Middle Class (Class C1, B and A) voted Conservatives.
Since the 70s, what has voting looked like?
Since the 1970s, the UK has been experiencing class dealignment. This means that the relationship between class and voting has weakened substantially.
What are some explanations for partisan dealignment?
- Increased Education: expansions of education in recent decades has encouraged voters to question traditional, party-based loyalties, and perhaps to take policies and issues more seriously.
- Impact of the media: voters have access to wider sources of political information, particularly through television. They are therefore less dependent on party-supporting newspapers.
- Ideological Change: shifts in parties’ policies and ideological beliefs since the 1980s have alienated some of their traditional supporters and appealed to their non-traditional supporters.
What are some explanations for class dealignment?
- changing class system: the manual workforce has shrunk (from 58% in 1961 to 29% in 2013) and the ‘traditional’ working class have given way to the ‘new’ working class.
- Cross-class locations: social class has become less clear-cut, for instance, through the decline in trade union membership and the rise in home ownership.
- Embourgeoisement: Growing affluence has encouraged some working-class voters to think of themselves as being middle class. Affluent workers may be more concerned about material self-interest.
What is the gender voting tendency?
Women tend to vote for conservatives.
Gender: What did the 1997 GE show?
Labour was supported by an equal number of women and men (44%), making this the first GE that Labour would have won with an all-female electorate. This trend continued in 2001 and 2005.
How did the 2015 GE not show the gender voting tendency?
Men were more likely to vote conservative than women in all age groups except 50+
How is the age voting trend shown?
In 1997 and 2001, the conservatives led Labour among the over-65s.
What is the trend with age?
Levels of conservative support increase with age.
What do some people argue is the reason why people are more likely to vote conservative as they age?
- Because they are now more well-off
- Because they are more fearful of change
How was the age trend evident in the 2016 EU referendum?
73% of 18-24 voters voted to Remain whereas 60% of 65+ voters favoured Leave.
What is arguably the biggest dividing line in British Politics according to YouGov?
Age
What is the ethnicity voting trend? Why?
BME voters have usually voted Labour. This could be because the party is more associated with a pro-immigration stance historically, as well as introducing measures to support these communities.
What did the 2017 GE show about ethnicity minority voting?
Labour remained the most popular party among ethnic minority voters, receiving 77% of ethnic minority votes, with 20% going ot the conservatives.
What happened in the 2019 GE when it came ot ethnic minorities?
Labour performed better than the conservatives among ethnic minority groups. Labour had a strong lead among among BME voters, although its vote share fell by roughly the same amount among both white and BME groups.
What is the regional voting trend?
The ‘North-South Divide’. Outside London, Labour only had a handful of seats in the south and the conservative support declined in the north of england. Since the blair era, Labour has began to do well in the south too.
What are the short term factors that affect voting behaviour?
Issue voting/rational choice theory, Valence, Governing Competence, Leaders, Campaign, Party Image, Turnout
What is governing competence?
Governing competence: the perceived ability of the governing party in office to manage the affairs of the state well and effectively.
How does governing competence affect voting behaviour?
The conventional wisdom on elections has long been that “governments lose elections; oppositions don’t win”. This means that elections are largely decided by the performance of the government of the day, and particularly by economic performance.
What is an example of governing competence being a factor in affecting voting behaviour?
The 2010 Election could be regarded as a ‘referendum’ on labour’s performance, the party was fatally damaged by the loss of its reputation for economic competence following the global financial crisis.
What qualities does a leader need to demonstrate?
accessibility, trust, strength etc.
How have party leaders affected voting behaviour?
Tony Blair was seen very capable when he was elected in 1997 especially with his new labour. However by 2005, his personal appeal had diminished significantly.
How can campaigns affect voting behaviour?
They usually help reinforce voters’ views rather than change them. They tend to focus more on all the factors mentioned previously.
