Before the study of voting behaviour developed in the twentieth century, voting was seen as an individual act by electors who weighed up the differing party policies on offer and who then made a rational decision about which party to vote for, based partly on individual advantage and partly on wider considerations of what was good for the country, one's class and so on. It was in 1964 that an organisation started to monitor the behaviour of voters during election and have continued to do so up to the present day.
The BES (The British Election Panel) or the BESP (The British Election Study Panel) conducted surveys to determine the extent to which individual voters change their party identification over time. The areas that they paid most attention to were the political preferences and values of the electorate, along with economic perceptions and their social attitudes. Also the disposition to engage in different forms of political activity, the socio-demographic characteristics of the individual and their household were how the BESP monitored and obtained a framework for their studies. It is these studies and others conducted by such organisation as the BHPS (The British Household Panel Survey) and the BSAS (The British Social Attitudes Surveys) that have given Psephologists valuable information and statistics which enables them to better understand the voting behaviour of an individual.
With this brief insight into the origins into the changes views, opinions of the electorate voting behaviour and the organisations that study such changes. The questions as to what can be held accountable for changes in voting behaviour in the last 30 years in UK elections, can be approached with a degree of understanding. Looking back to the mid 1970’s there was clearly a change in the way people were voting with the two-party vote slowly declining; one of the main reasons for this was class de-alignment.
There’re many factors that are involved with causing class de alignment, changes to the patterns of employment and to the social structure. Sections of the working class, particularly skilled workers in the southern half of the country, became more prosperous. The spread of home and share ownership and the increase in the availability of consumer durables blurred the distinction between the skilled working class and sections of the middle class. Most (though not all) commentators agreed that this led to a loosening of traditional ties with parties. There was a decline in those who identified with the working class, mirroring the decline in the 'traditional' working class, employed in the old 'staple' industries, such as coal, engineering, shipbuilding etc., with a parallel rise in the 'new' working class, employed in modern, high-tech and service industries. This had a bearing on electoral geography, namely that the Conservatives dominated the southern part of the country, while Labour was the party of the north and the big cities, areas of economic decline and decay.
Another theory was that of sectoral cleavage. This argued that the simple cleavage based on social class had been replaced by other divisions, such as that based on sector of employment, public or private, and sector of consumption. People who were employed in the public sector and/or who depended on the public sector for housing, education and so on were said to have been more likely, regardless of class, to have supported a party dedicated to the defence of public provision, while those who were employed in or who consumed in the private sector were likely to support the party which favoured a more individualistic approach. Though this theory has been criticised, especially in that it discounts individual experience and suggests that there is a dominant ideology which conditions how groups act, it does help to explain the increased fragmentation of class interests, especially those of the working class.
The processes of partisan and class dealignment have produced a highly volatile electorate, with a diminished core of support upon which the parties can rely. This in turn means that the stable and predictable party system of the 1950s and 1960s is now highly unstable and unpredictable. Statistics show those identifications with either the Labour party or Conservative party in the period between 1964 and 1987 fell from 81% to 70%, even the most traditional of connections dropped from 35% to 25%. Butler and Stokes found that over 80% of those voters who recalled that their parents had supported the party dominant in their social class also voted for that party. On the other hand, only 58% of those who recalled that their parents had supported the party not dominant in their social class followed them. However, it seems that the influence of parents on their children's voting behaviour is less strong than it was, especially where both parents were Labour; only half of those responding to a survey in 1987 were Labour voters.
This unpredictability on the part of the electorate created a different pattern in voting behaviour, one that was very ‘volatile’ and needed to be understood by the parties if they were to win them over. This brought about a reconsideration of their rather bleak view of voters. Some studies indicate that issues are much more significant. Instead of seeing the vote as an emotional, unthinking expression of allegiance to a party and to a class, the vote is increasingly being seen as an instrument that is used rationally by individuals who choose to 'purchase' the package of party policies that will advantage their own self-interest. There are four conditions to be met for an issue to affect voting and for a voter to be seen as an 'issue voter': the voter must be aware of the issue concerned, he or she must have some attitude towards or opinion about the issue, different parties must be perceived as having different policies on the issue and the elector must vote for the party whose position on the issue is, or is perceived to be, closest to that of the voter concerned.
Ivor Crewe suggested a method of analysing issue voting. This involves firstly the salience of an issue, the extent to which an issue is on voters' minds, secondly the party preferred on that issue and thirdly the credibility of the party positions on the issue. Given certain conditions, issues can help to swing voters. In the 1964 and 1970 elections, immigration was a significant issue, particularly in the West Midlands, while industrial relations and the cost of living were important factors in February 1974. Issues played a large part in deciding the 1979 election. Conservative pledges on taxation, the sale of council houses, law and order and trade union reform made considerable appeal among groups such as skilled workers in the South and Midlands who, up to then, had tended not to vote Conservative.
However, there are several criticisms of the Issue Voting/Rational Choice model. It does not explain why a rational and self-interested voter would bother to vote at all, given that an effort is required to gather the information needed to make a choice and given that an individual's vote will have no effect on the final result. The Issue Voting model also fails to account for the Conservative dominance during the 1980s. In 1983 and 1987 the Conservatives either did not have a clear lead or actually trailed the opposition parties on a number of issues such as unemployment, the welfare state and even defence. Surveys showed that the voters chose to vote for the party that would deliver to them greater personal prosperity which in itself is not considered to be an issue.
During the 20th century it is clear that the conservative party was the dominant force in British politics, before the election in 1994 the conservatives had been in power for over two-thirds of the century. That was all about to change. During the 1992 election, even though the conservative maintained power for the fourth time in succession there were indications that their strangled hold on the electorate was fading. With the inability to perform in Europe and losing their reputation as an economically competent party after losing Britain’s membership to the ERM, the belief and alliance that the voters showed in the conservatives would no longer be a certainty. And indeed at the next election the Labour party profited from the need for change by winning the election by such a margin that would exceed all expectations, and in the process providing the greatest swing in votes from the conservative to the Labour party since 1945. 10% had switched alliance giving a clear indication that any loyalties or partisanship that was perceived to be in existence had all but dissolved.
Despite the concentration on sociological factors by Psephologists, political factors remain of the greatest significance. Several aspects need to be examined. The impact that the party leader has on the electorate is not to be underestimated, having the right figure representing the party’s policies on key issues can have just as much bearing as the issues themselves. An example of this can be seen in the election campaign in the United States 1960 presidential election between the then President Nixon and the vibrant, fresh faced candidate J.F.Kennedy. The view was that the televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy which was watched by nearly 70 million people swung the election in the favour of Kennedy; this was because of the impression that he gave to the viewers, one of youthfulness and passion compared to the visibly drained Nixon.
This example also indicates the how important and useful the media, as a political tool, is for the campaigning parties. There is much dispute about the effect of television, though many experts believe that it has had a major part to play in voter dealignment, in that voters have access to political information reflecting a wider range of perspectives than was formerly the case. However, the influence of television is probably beyond the capacity of current techniques to measure.
Most commentators, though not all, believed that the main effect of the press was to reinforce existing partisan loyalties rather than to convert readers to the party supported by that paper. However, this was not to deny the significance of the press in helping to set the 'agenda' for the campaign, which in turn influenced the television commentators. However, the weakening of party identification suggests that voters may be more open to persuasion by the press than was previously thought. There is some evidence that voters are influenced by the paper they read. The tabloids are particularly significant in influencing voters who have a weak or non-existent identification. Until recently, most tabloids supported the Conservative Party although several swung to Labour in 1997.
Since the 1992 election millions of voters have deserted the conservative party which has seen the dominance of British politics switch in favour of the Labour party. In Tony Blair the Labour party have a central figure that has put forward the image of a party that has unity and a leader that would go out of his way to be seen to lead his party in a new direction, and for the moment as statistics indicate this is what the majority of the British public seem to want.
The models and approaches stated can offer insight into what key factors influence the behaviour of the voters, showing the changes from the post-war period 1945-1970 where individuals tended to vote from a traditional point of view. To the more recent characteristics of the electorate, that sees them taking more of an interest in the issues that the given party’s are addressing. Showing the changes in voting behaviour by way of the statistics given above outlining the percentage of voters who have switch alliance and the reasons as to why this has occurred. This paper has given evidence to suggest that not only are there sociological factors that play a part in determining this behaviour, but there are political tactics that are employed by the given parties in an attempt to sway opinions.
Bibliography
D.Butler and D.Stokes: Political Change in Britain, Macmillan, 1974, 2nd.ed
J.Dearlove and P.Saunders: Introduction to British Politics, Polity Press, 1991, 2nd.ed.
B.Jones and D.Kavanagh: Politics UK, Pearson Education LTD, 2004, 5th.ed.
College notes.