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Class and Partisan Alignment
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Voting Behaviour
In this course, Professor Peter Dorey (Cardiff University) explores various aspects of voting behaviour. In the first module, we think about voting behaviour in terms of class and partisan alignment and dealignment. After that, in the second module, we think about the importance of individual political issues (e.g. Brexit) and of the figure of the party leader him or herself influencing how people vote. In the third module, we think about the importance of the election campaign itself, before turning in the fourth module to consider the extent to which voting behaviour can be explained by age and gender. In the fifth module, we consider the extent to which the media can be said to influence voting behaviour, before turning in the sixth and final module to think about the issue of electoral turnout, how it has changed over the past fifty years, and some of the reasons for this change.
Class and Partisan Alignment
In this module, we think about voting behaviour in terms of class and partisan alignment and dealignment, focusing in particular: (i) the correlation between class and voting behaviour in the 1950s and 60s; (ii) the decoupling of class and voting behaviour from 1970 onwards, and the reasons for this change; (iii) the level of party loyalty – i.e. always voting for the same party – in the 1950s and 60s; (iv) the decline in party loyalty from 1970 onwards, and the reasons for this change; and (v) the rise (and fall) of parties beyond the ‘big two’ – e.g. the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, UKIP, etc. – and the reasons for these changes in the political landscape.
Hello, I'm Peter Dori.
00:00:05I'm professor of British politics at Cardiff University,
00:00:07and I'm based in the School of Law and Politics,
00:00:10and I focused mainly on British politics since
00:00:121945 and today's session is on voting behaviour
00:00:14and to show you how voting behaviour has changed in the last 40 or 50 years,
00:00:18I'm going to look at very briefly the main features
00:00:23of voting behaviour in the 19 fifties and sixties,
00:00:25which is an era of stability in British politics
00:00:28and how that's changed to the present day,
00:00:31which has become much more unstable and much more volatile.
00:00:33And the first thing to start with is to look at what's called class alignment now.
00:00:36That means that between the 19 fifties and 19 sixties,
00:00:41most people voted on the basis of class lines.
00:00:43Most of the working class voted for the Labour Party and most of the middle class,
00:00:47but for the Conservative Party, so that was a class alignment and broadly speaking,
00:00:50about two thirds of the middle class voted conservative
00:00:55and about 60% of the working class voted labour,
00:00:58and the assumption always was that working class focus on
00:01:02labour as a party of manual workers of collectivism,
00:01:05of employment, rights of full employment and trade unionism.
00:01:10The argument also was the middle class or the Conservative Party,
00:01:14as a party of aspiration, social mobility, prosperity and property ownership.
00:01:18So in that situation, therefore, voting was very stable
00:01:23and there's very little change from one general election to another.
00:01:27So between 1950 1970
00:01:30both parties, labour and conservative attracted between 43
00:01:3346% of the votes from their respective voters.
00:01:38Election results, therefore,
00:01:42were often very closely fought and there wasn't a great deal of change.
00:01:44What's happened since the 19 seventies is what's called Class D alignment,
00:01:48and it means that many voters these days no longer vote for
00:01:53the party which was associated with a particular kind of occupation.
00:01:57In other words,
00:02:01fewer working class voters vote for the Labour Party today
00:02:02and fewer middle class people vote for the Conservative Party.
00:02:05Indeed, if you look at the 2017 general election,
00:02:09we can see that 43% of the middle class voted for the Conservative
00:02:13Party and 44% of the working class vote for the Conservative Party.
00:02:17Also,
00:02:22meanwhile, 40% of the middle class vote for the Labour Party in 2017,
00:02:23and 42% of the working class voted Labour in 2017.
00:02:28What that means, in other words, is that fewer than half of each social class,
00:02:33working class and middle class
00:02:39now votes for their former class party.
00:02:41There has been a process of Class D alignment
00:02:44many working class people fill.
00:02:47The Conservative Party reflects their views better on issues like Europe,
00:02:49immigration
00:02:55and Law and Order,
00:02:56whereas many middle class people, particularly public sector
00:02:57fill labour is more sympathetic to their concerns and also as well.
00:03:01It could be argued
00:03:06that these days many middle class people are now feeling
00:03:07increasing insecure in their jobs and feel that maybe labour,
00:03:10rather the Conservative Party might offer them more protection.
00:03:14So we have a situation, therefore of fluidity.
00:03:18In terms of class voting,
00:03:21you can no longer assume or guess how someone's going
00:03:22to vote if they tell you what their occupation is,
00:03:25that is Class D alignment
00:03:28for partly for that reason,
00:03:30he means it's harder to predict now the outcome of general elections
00:03:32now class alignment and class D alignment is closely
00:03:37related to partisan alignment and partisan de alignment.
00:03:40Partisan alignment is where voters identify very
00:03:46strongly with a particular political party.
00:03:49In other words, they vote for that party at every general election.
00:03:53And again, if you look back at the 19 fifties and 19 sixties,
00:03:56there is a very strong link between parties and core supporters.
00:04:001970.
00:04:05About 40% of voters said they identified very
00:04:07strongly with the Labour or the conservative parties.
00:04:11They would always vote for those parties at every general election.
00:04:14And again,
00:04:17that meant that many elections were fairly stable in terms of their outcomes.
00:04:18And there was little changed overall in how people voted.
00:04:23In other words, the swing
00:04:28from one election to another.
00:04:29The swing from one party to another was often very small.
00:04:31What we have seen since 19 seventies is a
00:04:36process or a phenomenon called partisan de alignment.
00:04:39Voters these days rarely identify as strongly with a particular political party.
00:04:43Indeed, since the late 19 nineties,
00:04:50we have seen that only about 10 or 11% of
00:04:53voters claim to identify very strongly with labour or conservatives.
00:04:56There are several reasons why partisan de alignment has occurred.
00:05:02One of them is that many voters today
00:05:06have become disillusioned with the two main parties,
00:05:08Labour and Conservative.
00:05:12There is a general perception, rightly or wrongly, that the two main parties,
00:05:13Labour and Conservative,
00:05:18have been in power in British politics in
00:05:19government since the 19 forties 19 forties.
00:05:21But neither party, some people feel, have tackled the problems facing Britain.
00:05:24Some people say it doesn't matter if Labour or conservative were in power.
00:05:29The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, were dominated by the European Union.
00:05:33They have not tackled tax evasion or social
00:05:38security fraud and those kinds of issues,
00:05:40and therefore there's been a disillusionment with the two main parties.
00:05:43There's also as well of growing sense that
00:05:48people these days perhaps identify differently to class.
00:05:50So again, Pakistan de alignment is linked to class. The alignment.
00:05:54People have new identities days.
00:05:57They might define themselves in terms of social class and therefore
00:05:59they feel the labour and conservative are outdated and outmoded,
00:06:03and they will therefore vote for other parties representing new identities,
00:06:07maybe, or reflecting new concerns.
00:06:11There is a growing concern also that maybe the two main parties,
00:06:14until fairly recently were too similar.
00:06:18One,
00:06:21The complaints people made in the 19 nineties
00:06:22was that labour and Conservative for almost indistinguishable.
00:06:24They didn't offer a real alternative or a really effective choice to many voters.
00:06:28Against that view,
00:06:33some people say they don't like the two major
00:06:34parties anymore because they're seen as too extreme there,
00:06:37too ideological there, too out of touch.
00:06:39They don't represent moderate centre ground opinion.
00:06:42So where they say the party has been too similar or two divergent.
00:06:45Many voters today no longer feel that Labour or Conservative
00:06:50are effective vehicles for representing their concerns or their interest.
00:06:53One of the consequences of partisan de alignment in particular,
00:07:00is the rise of what's called third parties
00:07:04as fewer voters identify with labour or conservative.
00:07:07So its in the emergence of so called third parties
00:07:10the Green Party
00:07:13UKIP
00:07:14in Scotland, the Scottish National Put National Party in Wales applied Camry
00:07:16and in that situation, therefore,
00:07:21with partisan de alignment and less loyalty to the main
00:07:22parties using other parties begin to make a breakthrough.
00:07:26That process has been reinforced in Scotland and Wales by devolved assemblies.
00:07:30When you have a National assembly for Wales and a
00:07:35Scottish Parliament elected partly on the basis of proportional representation.
00:07:38People feel more readily available or willing to vote for
00:07:43the other parties because their vote is no longer wasted.
00:07:46So if you change the electoral system,
00:07:50you actually encourage people to vote differently to
00:07:52how they do under first past the Post.
00:07:54Also,
00:07:57you've seen in England the emergence in the 19 nineties of the Liberal Democrats.
00:07:58So, for example, in 2005 general election, the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats.
00:08:03That went down to 57 seats in 2010.
00:08:10But nonetheless, that's a major breakthrough,
00:08:14and that reflected also again is declining support for Labour and conservative.
00:08:16Other examples of how third parties have increased their support in the era.
00:08:21Partisan de alignment 2015 general election UKIP won four million votes.
00:08:25However, first past the post meant they only have one MP elected.
00:08:31But four million votes was a remarkable increase for a so called third party
00:08:35in 2015.
00:08:40Also saw the Green Party get one million votes and an MP elected as well,
00:08:41Caroline Lucas.
00:08:46So we're seeing a multi party system in Britain,
00:08:47partly because of new issues, new forms of social identity,
00:08:51disillusionment with the either similarity of the
00:08:55two main parties or their apparent extremism,
00:08:58and a sense that neither of the two major parties any longer offers
00:09:02voters what they want or is deemed to be credible and competent.
00:09:05
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Dorey, P. (2020, December 21). Voting Behaviour - Class and Partisan Alignment [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/voting-behaviour/age-and-gender
MLA style
Dorey, P. "Voting Behaviour – Class and Partisan Alignment." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 21 Dec 2020, https://massolit.io/courses/voting-behaviour/age-and-gender