Voting Trends: Valence Issues, rational choice, issue voting and economic issues

Question 1

Valance

Answer 1

• Where most of the electorate hold similar views - deciding to vote on the party based on party image and how its leader will manage that issue.
• Contrasts with positional voting - choose a party based on its position on one or a group of issues (taxation, education or the NHS).

Question 2

Governance competing

Answer 2

• Questions if the government appears to be decisive and if the party governs well when it was last in power.
• E.G = Tories lost office in 1997, partly due to issues around competency, including the ‘cash for questions’ and ‘mad cow disease scandals’.
• E.G. Tories in 2023 faced scandals like Partygate and the cost of living crisis - in local elections, the Tories lost 1000 seats (Labour won 500 and Lib Dems won 12).

Question 3

Economic competence (valence issue)

Answer 3

Looks to how well voters believe the party with manage the economy and in the past if they’ve done a lot to improve or damage it.

• Labour = blamed for contributing to the economic crisis of 2008 and allowing government debt to rise by an alarming amount - defeats in 2010/15 partly due to this.
• Conservatives held an image of fiscal responsibility and good management (won the 1987 election, creditted for the booming economy) - possibly ended after not helping during the cost of living crisis 2023.
• 2016: Chancellor of the exchequer, Phillip Hammond stated he would manage the economy on a ‘pragmatic basis’ so people feel confident about his competence.

Question 4

Unity of the party (valence issue)

Answer 4

• Often said that a disunited party has no chance of winning a general election, especially as voters dislike uncertainty.

+ Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 suffered the most negative images in recent political history. Improved by 2017, enabling most of the Labour Party rallied behind him (illusion of a united party - raised votes from 30.4% to 40.0%).

+ Under Boris Johnson, the Conservative appeared split over Brexit, but the Labour opposition with both Corybyn and Keir Starmer remains too weak and not a concern for Conservatives for the 2019 ge- removed the ‘red wall’ as Labour voters shifted to Cons because of their more consistent view on Europe.

Question 5

Leadership (valence issues)

Answer 5

• Voters like strong leaders with desirable personal characteristics, looking at their records as politicians (Blair and to an extent Thatcher).
• Rarely supports weak leaders - PM Liz Truss (lettuce campaign), Labour’s Ed Miliband, Lib Dems’ Nick Clegg, and Gordon Brown for being too indecisive.
• Disliked Boris Johnson bc in 2018 he was accused of Islamophobia after saying Muslim women wearing burkas “look like letter boxes”.

Question 6

Rational choice model (issue voting)

Answer 6

Voters who aren’t committed to one party make a rational decision at each election, basing their vote on that.

• Some political issues are more salient than others for the electorate = parties undertake research to determine what are the salient issues at each election, informing them how to adjust policies and frame their campaign.
• Done by opinion polls (economy, immigration and NHS). Example, Brexit in 2019.

Question 7

What are two variations of rational choice voting

Answer 7

+ Expressive = a voter derives satisfaction if they vote for a party that benefits society as a whole.

+ Instrumental = choosing parties whose policies will likely benefit themselves (business voting Conservative).