British Election Research Articles

Remain or Leave? Reflections on the pedagogical and informative value of a Massive Open Online Course on the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership

While the British electorate was asked to vote on a simple-sounding question during the UK referendum on EU membership in June 2016, the issues at play were extremely complex. In order to help potential voters make sense of the debate, the authors ran a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the referendum in the weeks leading up to the vote. The core of the MOOC featured all the common characteristics of this type of course: weekly video lectures, quizzes, question and answer sessions, forums and personal journals which participants could use to share and deliberate. This article reflects on the design and delivery of this course to assess its usefulness in an academic setting, especially when treating politically sensitive questions. In particular, we consider issues of format, participation, and interaction and also examine student outcomes as measured by a survey of users who completed the course. What this shows is that the ability of MOOCs to deliver on their initial promise as a revolutionary pedagogical tool for communicating knowledge remains somewhat limited. Nevertheless, the level of student satisfaction obtained and the desire expressed in discussion forums for more expert analysis outside conventional channels suggests there is probably a high demand for EU-related MOOCs.

Does your face fit? Facial morphology as a predictor of success in UK & US general elections

Aim: To determine the frequency of recognised morphologic facial phenotypes amongst UK and US election candidates and to assess whether there is a relationship between facial morphology and success in general elections.

How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015

Political parties often appeal to groups. Yet, existing work does not consider how such group-based appeals are used, presumably because they are thought to have grown ineffective. Contrary to this, I argue that group-based appeals are central to party electoral strategy, and that time has only strengthened the incentive to use them. Using original data on 10,000 group-based appeals found in sentence-by-sentence coding of British election manifestos, I demonstrate an increasing use of group-based appeals from 1964 to 2015. Furthermore, I show that the range of groups emphasized, the concentration of group emphasis, and the specific group categories targeted also follow the electoral incentives prevalent over this 50-year period. These findings shed new light on how political parties appeal for votes and suggest that we view group-based appeals as a distinctive feature of party electoral strategy. I discuss the implications for our broader understanding of electoral competition.

Brexit or Corbyn? Campaign and Inter-Election Vote Switching in the 2017 UK General Election

The 2017 UK General Election saw the collapse of UKIP and an unusually influential campaign that saw Labour improving from a likely historic defeat to almost pulling level with the Conservatives and denying Theresa May a parliamentary majority. We argue the election should be understood in two phases: first from 2015 to the start of the election campaign, and second the campaign itself. The former period was characterised by strong switching along Brexit lines, with 2015 UKIP voters defecting heavily to the Conservatives following the outcome of the EU Referendum, which had enabled the Conservatives to make credible promises on immigration. Concurrently, many 2015 Labour supporters had defected to other parties or were undecided. The campaign then saw Labour winning voters from all sources, but particularly from previously undecided voters. While campaign vote flows were not as strongly related to Leave/Remain votes, 2015-2017 switching as a whole was heavily influenced by the EU referendum choices. We conclude 2017 was indeed a ’Brexit election‘, but the campaign is better understood as a general rise in support for Labour resulting from Corbyn's appeal relative to that of Theresa May, particularly among the party’s own 2015 voters who had defected before the campaign.

The face of the party? Leader personalization in British campaigns

ABSTRACTThe personal characteristics of political elites play an important role in British elections. While the personalization of the media’s election coverage has been the subject of much debate, we know less about the conditions under which voters receive personalized messages directly from elites during the campaign. In this paper, we use a new dataset that includes more than 3300 local communications from the 2015 general election to explore variation in the personalization of campaign messaging. We find that there is systemic variation in terms of where photographs of party leaders are included in election communications, which provides further evidence that campaign messages are deployed strategically to portray the candidate – and their party – in the best possible light.

Reading between the lines: party cues and SNP support for Scottish independence and Brexit

ABSTRACTScotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With the UK now facing a chaotic exit from the EU, proponents of Scottish independence have suggested that a second referendum may occur after Brexit negotiations are completed. Faced with a consensus among Scottish party leaders in supporting EU membership, those hoping for a second independence referendum, we argue, looked to alternate sources of information that saw Brexit as an opportunity to create the conditions that would spur a second referendum. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we examine whether Scottish voters voted tactically to leave the EU. We argue that Scottish National Party voters were likely to interpret statements on the conditions for a second independence referendum as an implicit signal to vote “Leave.” The results have important implications for the role of referendums in representative democracy, strategic voting, and the importance of intra-party division on individual vote choices.

Election 2017: The Promise of May

This essay dissects the 2017 UK General Election and its implications for relationships within and between its constituent territories.

An Assessment of the Causes of the Errors in the 2015 UK Gseneral Election Opinion Polls

SummaryThe opinion polls that were undertaken before the 2015 UK general election underestimated the Conservative lead over Labour by an average of 7 percentage points. This collective failure led politicians and commentators to question the validity and utility of political polling and raised concerns regarding a broader public loss of confidence in survey research. We assess the likely causes of the 2015 polling errors. We begin by setting out a formal account of the statistical methodology and assumptions that are required for valid estimation of party vote shares by using quota sampling. We then describe the current approach of polling organizations for estimating sampling variability and suggest a new method based on bootstrap resampling. Next, we use poll microdata to assess the plausibility of different explanations of the polling errors. Our conclusion is that the primary cause of the polling errors in 2015 was unrepresentative sampling.

The veil of duty: can dutiful forms of citizenship mask feelings of political dissatisfaction?

It is widely acknowledged that political dissatisfaction is rife across many established democracies, and yet we generally know very little from citizens themselves about what might be driving this disaffection. Where attention has been paid it typically focuses on groups whose relationship with politics is deemed problematic for one reason or another (e.g. young people). Those with higher rates of political participation are often overlooked, but if participation is undertaken by such people because they feel a sense of duty and obligation then we have little reason to accept their engagement as tacit approval of the political system or status quo. This article explores the question of how those at the normative core of citizenship feel about electoral politics. It uses data from the Mass Observation Project to explore feelings of electoral dissatisfaction amongst dutiful citizens over the seven UK elections between 1983 and 2010. The findings show that high participation and adherence to dutiful norms of citizenship can mask profound and sustained feelings of political dissatisfaction.

Validation of the Online Political Engagement Scale in a British population survey

Over the last decade, there has been an ever increasing number of citizens using online media to participate in and engage with politics. Social media sites and online blogs have enabled new opportunities for interactive and user-centered political experiences. Currently, there is a general scarcity of psychometrically validated and standardized instruments that assess politically-related constructs in the field of political sciences. The main aim of the present study was to develop a standardized psychometric tool to assess online political engagement among the general population that is valid and reliable. The present study examined the psychometric properties of a 7-item Online Political Engagement Scale (OPEnS) that assesses various online political actions people engage with during election campaigns. To develop the scale, data from the 2010 British Election Survey were used, and a total of 3,075 people participated in an online survey, post-election. The main findings obtained in the present study supported the undimensionality of the online political engagement construct given the results obtained from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The OPEnS appears to be a valid and reliable instrument for assessing this phenomenon, and may be useful in studies investigating newer patterns of online political engagement and disengagement.

Corbynism’s conveyor belt of ideas: Postcapitalism and the politics of social reproduction

In this reflection, we assess the theoretical faultline running through the contested current of Corbynist thought and politics at present. On one hand, we find a techno-utopian strand preoccupied with automation and the end of work. On the other hand, a nascent politics of social reproduction with a foreshortened potential to realise the promise of a continental-style solidarity economics in the United Kingdom. Both represent the latest in a series of left attempts to confront the crisis of social democracy that rages across Europe, a crisis to which the British Labour Party has not been alone in succumbing despite recent appearances otherwise. Deindustrialisation collapsed labour’s role in everyday life, and a crisis in the society of work eventually passed over into its representative party’s electoral decline. Subsequent financial crisis and subsequent austerity have only made things worse. A poverty of ideas prevails that all sides of social democracy’s unsteady compromise seek desperately to solve. However, the recent UK General Election shows evidence that Corbynism has renewed Labour’s fortunes to some extent. Surveying the competing intellectual currents behind its rise, we suggest that the politics of social reproduction offer a better route forward for the Labour Party than the popular siren call of postcapitalism, and reflect on what the recent general election result suggests for their future development.

Who voted for Brexit? A comprehensive district-level analysis

On 23 June 2016, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. We analyse vote and turnout shares across 380 local authority areas in the United Kingdom. We find that exposure to the EU in terms of immigration and trade provides relatively little explanatory power for the referendum vote. Instead, we find that fundamental characteristics of the voting population were key drivers of the Vote Leave share, in particular their education profiles, their historical dependence on manufacturing employment as well as low income and high unemployment. At the much finer level of wards within cities, we find that areas with deprivation in terms of education, income and employment were more likely to vote Leave. Our results indicate that a higher turnout of younger voters, who were more likely to vote Remain, would not have overturned the referendum result.

It's the emotions, Stupid! Anger about the economic crisis, low political efficacy, and support for populist parties

This study examines the impact of anger about the economic crisis on electoral participation and voting behavior. Previous work on emotions has consistently underlined the mobilization potential of anger. The economic crisis has generated widespread anger, but political disengagement, rather than mobilization, and growing support for populist parties have emerged as the dominant effects. This is because the impact of anger about the crisis is moderated by political efficacy. Among citizens with low efficacy, anger decreased electoral participation and fueled support for populist parties. In contrast, among citizens with high efficacy, anger promoted participation and increased support for mainstream opposition parties. I use the 2005–2010 British election panel, which allows me to address endogeneity concerns, control for pre-crisis engagement and other negative emotions, and perform causal mediation analysis. This work contributes to the study of emotions and voting behavior; support for populist parties; and the political consequences of the crisis.

Were We Really All in it Together? The Distributional Effects of the 2010–15 UK Coalition Government's Tax‐benefit Policy Changes

AbstractThis article examines the distributional impacts of changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct taxes between the UK general elections of May 2010 and May 2015. The changes did not have a common effect on all household incomes; nor did the direct tax‐benefit changes contribute to deficit reduction. Effectively, reductions in benefits and tax credits financed part of the direct taxes cuts, but the overall net fiscal cost increased pressure for cuts in other public services and increases in other (more regressive) taxes. The main gains were in the upper middle of the income distribution, and the main losers were at the bottom and those close to, but not at, the very top. Across most of the distribution the changes were regressive. By comparing with other analyses of policy changes in the same period, we illustrate the importance of analytical choices and assumptions for detailed conclusions on their distributional effects. We also show how some groups were clear losers or gained little on average – including lone parent families, large families and families with younger children. Others were gainers, including two‐earner couples, and those in their fifties and early sixties. The findings show that a dominant feature of the period was that the combination of higher tax‐free income tax allowances, financed by cuts in benefits and tax credits, was generally regressive. As this combination also lies at the heart of the proposed policies of the Conservative government since 2015, we would expect these effects to be intensified in the coming years.

Model selection in observational media effects research: a systematic review and validation of effects

ABSTRACTMedia effects research has produced mixed findings about the size and direction of the relationship between media consumption and public attitudes. We investigate the extent to which model choices contribute to these inconsistent findings. Taking a comparative approach, we first review the use of different models in contemporary studies and their main findings. In order to extend and validate this review, we consider the implications for national election studies attempting to measure media effects in election campaigns and recreate these models with the British Election Study 2005–2010 panel data. We compare the direction and size of effects of media content on attitude change across: between-subjects, within-elections models, in which the effects of individual-level variance in media exposure and content are assessed; within-subjects, within-elections models, which compare the effects of variance in media content for the same individual; and within-subjects, between-elections models that allow us to analyse the links between media content and exposure with attitude change over time. Our review shows some notable differences between models in terms of significance of effects (but not effect sizes). We corroborate this finding in the British campaign analysis. We conclude that to check the robustness of claims of media effects in observational data, where possible researchers should examine different model choices when evaluating media effects.

Big Brother we’re watching you: Members of a new London club claim to have empowered voters in the UK General Election

Big Brother we’re watching you: Members of a new London club claim to have empowered voters in the UK General Election

Living by the Pen: In Conversation with Sunjeev Sahota

Sunjeev Sahota is one of the leading lights of contemporary British literature. Although he writes in a familiar form, the content of his work is anything but ordinary. From social dislocation in contemporary India, to the hidden labour behind Sheffield takeaways, to the radicalized generation responding to twenty-first-century British society, his novels tackle some of the most pressing social and political concerns of our times. The stories are set in Northern England, but the themes of his two best-selling novels and the lifestyle of their author are profoundly global. Sahota splits his time between a home in Sheffield, family in India, and an international diary of literary work. In the last twelve months alone, Sahota joined Leeds Beckett University as the first University Writer in Residence, took part in a British Council trip to promote contemporary British literature in Russia, and scooped the EU Prize for Literature in the immediate aftermath of Brexit. Before this whirlwind of success, and a variety of concurrent social and political changes in the UK and overseas, Sunjeev Sahota agreed to an interview for English. The interview that follows reflects on many of the events that occurred in the twelve months leading up to the day we conducted our interview, in person, at Mrs Atha’s coffee shop in Leeds, UK on the eve of the 2017 UK General Election.

Authoritarianism, Social Structure and Economic Policy Preferences

While elite level and political party ideological positions broadly reflect a one dimensional structure, at the mass level ideological positions appear to be unstructured or multidimensional. In this paper we reconcile this apparent disconnect and argue that economic policy preferences among the general public arise from an interaction between universalistic (socially liberal) and particularistic (authoritarian) dispositions, and social position. The economic preferences of universalistic liberals tend to economic left-leaning regardless of social position, whereas the preferences of particularistic authoritarians reflect their standing in the social order. For example, poor authoritarians tend to favour redistribution while better off authoritarians tend to be economic right-leaning. Using British Election Study, American National Election Study and European Election Study data we demonstrate this pattern across a range of policy areas and social groups. We find a consistent pattern whereby liberals support policies that promote fairness and equality, and authoritarians support policies that benefit their own social group.

Party Attachment in Great Britain: Five Decades of Dealignment

The 2015 election brought one of the largest changes to the UK party system that Britain has ever seen. But how did this play out at the individual level? Was there an unprecedentedly large shift in voters’ preferences? This note uses British Election Study Panels from 1966 to 2015 to look at the volatility of voters’ choices across elections. I find that the 2015 election was the latest part of a long-running trend of increasing individual level vote volatility. While this volatility was expressed in much larger aggregate changes than we have seen in previous elections, there has been steadily increasing vote churn below the surface.

In Focus: Brexit and the UK General Election

In Focus: Brexit and the UK General Election