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A Level Government and Politics > Voting Behaviour and Participation > Flashcards

Voting Behaviour and Participation Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the structure of an indirect democracy in the UK

A

House of Commons, which voters elects representatives to act on their behalf

Government, formed by largest party in the House

Devolved bodies, Scottish Parliament

Referenda

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2
Q

What are the advantages of a direct democracy

A

Allows public to decide on everything

Difficult for corruption to influence decisions

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3
Q

What are the disadvantages of a direct economy?

A

It makes the decision making process slow and inefficient

It’s extremely expensive

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4
Q

What are the advantages of an indirect democracy?

A

They are better suited to modern democracies

The decision making process is much faster and more efficient than in a direct democracy

It’s less expensive

The representative of the people are usually experts

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5
Q

What’s the disadvantages of an indirect democracy

A

It can be corrupt

Public may not get what they want

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6
Q

What are the main features of ‘liberal democracies’

A 
Free elections
The right to oppose
Popular control of policy markers
Political equality (One person, one vote)
Law making by elected representatives
Majority rule
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7
Q

What does pluralism mean?

A

It is the existence of diverse centres of economic and political power, involving a choice of political parties and the existence of many pressure groups

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8
Q

What is a Limited Government?

A

Checks and limitations on the power of the government to secure essential liberties

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9
Q

Civil liberties and rights

A

The existence of essential public freedoms often written in law (e.g. The freedoms of assembly and speech, the right to vote and to a fair trial)

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10
Q

Open Government

A

Non-secretive government that can be seen as fair and accountable

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11
Q

What is an independent judiciary

A

A just, impartial and independence legal system based on equal access to the law

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12
Q

What does the term ‘free and open media’

A

Newspaper and broadcasting being allowed to operate freely without government pressure

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13
Q

What is forced/ manipulated participation?

A

Where people are forced by law or by police intervention to vote

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14
Q

Examples of where this happens

A

Australia
Belgium
Greece

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15
Q

Examples of elections

A

Local council elections
Members of devolved assemblies
Members of European Parliament

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16
Q

Voter turnout

A

Over 75% and some over 90%, w/ exceptionally high figures have compulsory voting laws

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17
Q

What do you have to be to qualify as a voter in the UK

A

Over 18

Qualifying Commonwealth or citizen of the Republic of Ireland

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18
Q

UK Turnout Figures

A

1979: 76%
1983: 72.7%
1987: 75.3%
1992: 77.7%
1997: 71.4%
2001: 59.4%
2005: 61.3%
2010: 65.1%

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19
Q

High turnout election examples

A

October 1974- 72.8

1992- 77.7

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20
Q

Why is turnout so low?

A

People are becoming increasingly involved in pressure groups so they are not voting

People don’t necessarily trust politicians ability to make changes and their reliability (MPs Expenses Scandal)

The move to the centre ground after New Labour, has

Social disengagement, lack of community/ national pride, people are generally more individual

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21
Q

What is the structure of a direct democracy in Ancient Athens

A

There’s an executive council which is chosen directly from the electorate (500 men over 30 who serve for 1 year period)

People’s assembly which decides issues of peace and war (Ekklesia)

People’s Court which is a selection from a panel of volunteers on a case by case basics

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22
Q

Information about Crewe’s survey in the UK/US (1996)

A

80% of British pupils engaged in little to no political discussion

23
Q

Information about Parry et al (1992)

A

Surveyed 1500 people and found 75% were politically active to some degree and the rest were inactive

23.2% were involved in a variety of political activities apart from voting

51% said their only involvement was voting in elections

25.85% were almost inactive

24
Q

Which Age group is most likely to vote?

A

The grey vote, they are the most reliable voters

25
Q

What ethnicities are least likely to participate?

A

Africans and Caribbeans

26
Q

What areas are most likely to participate

A

Urban Areas

27
Q

What social class is most likely to participate?

A

Professional and business people, those Ho are better educated because they perceive that political activity affects their everyday lives unlike uneducated and lower classes

28
Q

What is a 40:30:30 society?

A

Used to describe a society in which 40% are in secure employment, 30% is in insecure employment (self-employed and part-time workers) and the remaining 30% are socially and economically marginalised, jobless or working for poverty wages

29
Q

What is the A/B class?

A

Higher/lower managerial, professional and administrative positions, this is 28% of the population

30
Q

What is the C1 class?

A

White collar, skilled, supervisory of lower non-manual… This is 29% of the population

31
Q

What is the C2 class?

A

The skilled manual workers, 19% of population

32
Q

What is the D/E social class?

A

Semi-skilled and unskilled manual, residual, casual workers, long-term unemployed and very poor

33
Q

Why does participation matter?

A

In a democracy, the people hold ministers and the government to account through elections, an informed electorate will be able to exercise their rights and make sure their government is not begin unjust

If the majority doesn’t participate moderately, the minority of extremists will largely affect the vote

‘new forms of participation’ are often sporadic and are rather temporary.

34
Q

Why does participation not matter?

A

New forms of participation allows people to express their views without joining political parties where members only play a small role. Bread and butter issues are not as relevant to the current society, people use other ways to register their views on their new, different priorities e.g. Joining environmental campaigns, taking part in protests and demonstrations

  • Politics is not an important priority in people’s lives
  • There is a trend of high participation when their is crisis
35
Q

What is the Party Identification Theory?

A

It suggests that young people are socialised into supporting the party their parents support, from a young age, people have a psychological attachment to their parties and a sense of identity, called partisan alignment

36
Q

What is Partisan Dealignment

A

It is when people no longer have a sense of identification with political parties, this is an issue for parties, Clarke et al found that gather number of people who had ‘very strong’ levels of identification with Labour or Cons has fallen from 45% in 1964 to 21% by 1979 and 13% by 2001

37
Q

What is the sociological theory?

A

Theory suggests that people social characteristics influence their participation in politics- particularly their social class. Because of the roots of the parties, they have mirrored the class system, middle class (vote Con) and the working class (vote Labour). Many people deviate from this system, other characteristics like ethnicity, gender, religion and region were also seen as long term factors

38
Q

What’s class Dealignment?

A

It’s when people vote out of their social class expectation. Caused by more social mobility and working class voting Conservative. Statistic from 2015?

39
Q

What is the rational choice theory?

A

The theory that people are making judgements based on the past performance of a particular party, or the advantages that they could gain if they voted for that party

People judge each party based on self interest, this somewhat commercialises the process and makes the electorate seem like consumers, because parties need to show off to their voters their best achievements and potential

40
Q

Name the six short term influences

A 
Issue voting
The appeal of Party Leaders
Impact of Mass Media
Effectiveness of Campaigning
Events leading to the election e.g. War
The economic situation
41
Q

Name the eight long term influences

A 
Social class
Ethnicity
Gender
Age
Party Identification and Loyalty
Family Upbringing
Region
Religion
42
Q

Voting behaviour in recent years

A

Average share of the vote for each of the top 3 parties in post-war elections

1945-70 // Conservatives // 45.3 1974-2005 37.9
1945-70 // Labour 37.9 //1974-2005 36.3
Liberal Democrats 7.1 and 19.4

43
Q

What influence does the economy have on the economy

A

It is a valence issue (one where there is broad agreement within the electorate about the goals that government should pursue)

David Sanders suggested

  • Voters see the success of the economy in terms of the level of mortgage interest and inflation
  • People are more likely to re-elect a government which makes them ‘feel good’ about the state of the economy
44
Q

What impact do the party leaders have on the electorate

A

Parties are very careful to select a good leader and one who is able to ‘relate to the public’. Not so much a priority in the 1950s but top priority of all parties today

Examples- Labour lost 5.8% of their vote, public didn’t trust Tony Blair (2005) but the Conservative leader, Michael Howard didn’t have a positive enough image to win the election

2010- Gordon Brown’s negative image in the media cost Labour a lot of votes

45
Q

What impact does party issues and images

A

Some general elections are dominated by one or two issues that cause particular controversy and interest e.g. Nick Clegg, student loans has impacted the image of the Liberal Democrats

Back in the 50s and 60s voting behaviour was much more predictable bc of class and partisan alignment… Issues mattered a lot less to people. Dealignment and floating voters make this less predictable

46
Q

What impact did the leadership debates have

A

Three in five said the debates would be important in helping them decide who to vote for

39% of the population said the debates were not very important at all

47
Q

What’s the impact of the first debate on voting intention (Ipsos MORI Political monitor) // 2010

A

23% said the bate changes their mind

25% the debate encouraged them to vote for the party they already supporter

48
Q

What Impact did the 2015 debates have

A

According to a Panelbase survey of 3,019 people, 38% were influenced by the debate, 23% by TV news coverage and 10% by party political broadcasts

49
Q

David Denver’s 2003 study analysis of the 1992 election

A
  • 63% of voters has already made up their mind at the beginning
  • 21% made up their mind in the last week
  • 6% in the last day
50
Q

Impact of target voters in 2005 General Election Campaign

A

The leaders targeted constituencies they hoped to win and were really keen not to lose

However, one Conservative activist pointed out that ‘there are 7.4 million voters in target seats, but it will be 838,000 who decide the election

51
Q

What is the impact of the media on voting behaviour?

A

On an average day, nearly 60% of all people over the age of 15 read a morning paper

In 2915, 86% of households in GB have Internet access

  • More than 97% of homes have a television (Televisions are non-partisan, have to give equal time to all political parties)
  • A
52
Q

Examples of Newspaper Alligances (2010)

A

The Sun, which sells 2,600,000 daily in Con
Daily Telegraph, sells 574,000 daily in Con
Guardian, sells 212000 daily, in Lab
Independent, sells 90,000 daily in Lab

53
Q

Is the media too influential

A

Yes, investigative journalism can influence the vote (Telegraph and Expenses scandal)

Set the agenda- what is on front page news is important

No

Decreasing readership
Broadcast media is heavily regulated

A Level Government and Politics (5 decks)

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