voting theories

Question 1

valence voting

Answer 1

-Prof Cowley, more people are voting based on the competence of the governing party, particularly competent economic management
-an example of a party being voted out due to incompetence came in 1979 when Labour was punished for its economic management during the ‘Winter of Discontent’
-on the other side Blair’s New Labour was re-elected in 2001 and 2005 mainly due to strong economic growth

Question 2

valence evaluation

Answer 2

Labour’s vote share from 2005 (35%) to 2010 (29%) dropped by just 6%. Although it was significant enough to remove Labour from office, the overwhelming majority of Labour voters remained loyal to the party. This suggests that valence voting may be limited to a small, but important segment of the electorate (swing voters).

Question 3

leadership based voting

Answer 3

-Prof Tim Bale, voters act more like a consumer judging parties based on their leadership, qualities such as charisma and communication are prioritised
-essentially there has been a presidentialisation of UK politics, polls predict if the PM is unpopular and the leader of HM opposition is popular (as with Major and Blair) there will be a change in leadership

Question 4

leadership evaluation

Answer 4

Professor Brown acknowledges that ‘leadership alone’ does not determine the outcome of elections.

Question 5

class alignment

Answer 5

-post war consensus era, voting determined by class, Prof Pulzer ‘In British party politics, class is everything’
-1950s and 60s, two thirds of the middle class voted conservative and 60% of the working class voted labour
-class dealignment has now occurred for two reasons: Thatcher’s atomistic society was enjoyed by everyone, and modern tories better represent the working class’ views on issues such as immigration
-2019 election, tories won C2 and D/E voters by 15%

Question 6

partisan alignment

Answer 6

-until 1970, 40% of the electorate strongly identified with one party and would not ‘swing’ to another
-from the 1970s onwards there has been a trend of partisan dealignment, and now only 10% of the electorate strongly identify with a party and only 1% are party members
-people no longer strongly identify with a class, so ‘class based’ politics has now been rejected in place of ‘indentity politics’
-and there is a belief the parties are too similar both embracing ‘centrist’ economics

Question 7

issue based voting

Answer 7

-recognises only 10% of the country are now partisan aligned, so the rest of the electorate vote based on the issues most salient to them
-2019 more than 1 in 10 Labour votes from 2017 switched to the Conservatives in 2019 mainly because of Brexit, in an IPSOS-MORI poll, 56% of the electorate placed Brexit as a key issue, only second to the NHS
-these voters make the ‘rational choice’ based upon their opinions

Question 8

issues evaluation

Answer 8

traditionally, rational choice voting is associated with highly educated, politically literate voters who reject a partisan-aligned approach to politics or the class politics of their parents. Nevertheless, the trend is increasing among the working class (C2 and D/E) too – as evidenced by the salience of Brexit in the 2019 General Election among C2 and D/E voters.