Assess and analyse the view that voting behaviour has changed over the last 25 years

manual employment has been associated with inter generational social mobility. Many people from working class backgrounds now have professional and other non- manual occupations. Partly as a consequence of these developments and partly as a result of the increased proposition of women in the workforce, many people are in ‘cross class’ locations. By this it is meant that they either individually have characteristics of more than one class or else live in mixed class households.                                                                Instrumental voting behaviour concentrates on the short-term factors that influence behaviour, rather than long-term factors such as class loyalty. Issues that might affect voting habits may include policy issues, leadership, media coverage, techniques used in the election campaign. Naturally, as short-term factor, these points could be used to explain the volatility of voting behaviours, particularly in the rise of the independent floating voter.                                                                 Such an approach might explain the great swings in popularity of parties and governments as leaders change. One of the factors leading to Margaret Thatcher’s downfall was her poor standing in opinion polls compared to Michael Heseltine and John Major. Prior to each of the Conservative party’s general election victories the Conservative government had gone through periods of considerable unpopularity, including the loss of by- elections before recovering to win the general election.                Butler and Stokes (1970) conducted a piece of research on partisan alignment, which is an individual’s strong adherence to a particular party. One of the claims Butler and Stokes made was that, most voters had a strong partisan self- image, they thought of themselves as either ‘Labour’ or ‘Conservative’.         The partisan alignment theory of voting was so widely accepted that in 1967 Peter Pulzer claimed “class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail.” However the partisan alignment theory could not explain the existence of deviant voters, those who do not conform to the general voting pattern.                                                        Deviant voters are normally defined as manual workers who do not vote Labour and non – manual workers who do not vote Conservative. Deviant voters are those who do not vote for the party that is generally seen to represent their class.             The second main feature of the British voting patterns, the two party systems was perhaps known to be very striking and interesting. Together the Labour and the Conservative Parties dominated the political scene. If class determined voting and these were two classes then inevitably there would be two dominant parties to represent class. The Conservatives gained so many votes because middle class non-manual workers identified them as the party that will totally represent them, whilst on the other hand the Labour party enjoyed similar levels of support amongst working class manual voters. Therefore there was little room left for a third party. The Liberal Democrats were not believed to represent any particular class, and therefore could not rely on strong partisan support from any particular section of the electorate.                It has to be remembered that when comparing the electorate of the 1950’s to that of the1990’s very different groups of voters will be involved. Some changes will occur such as the composition of voting is changing as young people are attaining the age of voting whilst others will die, many other changes such as movements in attitude, values and behaviours will also alter from election to election.                         Economic policy lies at the heart of British politics; it is also regarded as a major issue as concerned to changes in voting patterns and behaviours. Newton (1993) suggests that, the 1992 elections presented a challenge to the theory of economic voting. Mrs Thatcher attempted to change the change the face of the economy, however by doing so she created a national outcry and due to this lost many votes. The government ‘privatised’ nearly half of what had been publicly owned. Thatcherism attempted to change the structure of rewards; it cut tax bills of the rich, while also reducing the real values of many welfare benefits, especially those to the unemployed. The expectations behind this changes was that by making unemployment look unattractive, it economically would encourage the unemployed to take jobs at lower wage rates, thus reducing both unemployment and the overall pressures of wage demands. The voters however did not blame the government which was led by Mr Major rather they blamed Mrs Thatcher. By removing Mrs Thatcher in 1990, the Conservatives not only ditched an unpopular Prime Minister but also indirectly escaped being held responsible for the weakness of the economy. Sanders (1992) argues that the Conservatives won because they convinced enough voters that “The modest recovery In their personal economic circumstances that they had recently experienced was more likely to be sustained under a Conservative government than a Labour government.”(1992). The pattern of gender and voting has changed considerably over recent years. In 1967 it was possible to argue that “ There is overwhelming evidence that women are more conservatively inclined than men, sex is the one factor which indubitably counter- balances class trends: working class women are more right wing than working class men, middle class women are more right wing than middle class men.” (Pulzer 1967). There appeared to be sound reasons why this situation existed. Some argued that since women stayed art home more than men it was natural that their attitudes should be shaped by the traditional values of the family. It was likely that not having a job meant that such women never experienced industrial conflict at the workforce and so did not value the role played by trade unions. Others argued that women voting Conservative more was a reflection of the fact that people generally became more Conservative as they grow older and women also live longer than men.        There has been a long recognised association between increasing age and Conservative support. Why should age be an influence on voting behaviour? It has been argued that for most people property and wealth increase with age. It has been suggested that age is an influence on voting In terms of ‘political generations’ passing through the electorate. Each generation forms its views and votes for the first time.         Participation by the ethnic minorities in elections can be used as a measure of political integration and support for democratic politics. At the same time, discrimination against the ethnic minority could result in political responses such as apathy, alienation or even rebellion. It is argued that people from ethnic backgrounds support the Labour party more at elections because the policies relate more to their situations.                                                                                       Although all the above-mentioned factors influence the way a person will cast their vote. Richard Rose and Ian McAllister (1986-1990) developed a model of British voting behaviours, they called this ‘a lifetime of learning’. They use multiple regressions to trace the extent to which various factors successfully predict party choice at election. Taken together class, age, gender and partisan voting account for the variation in individual party choice.  The link between class and voting has dissolved, as affluence has increased, there has been an increase in volatility results from the decline of class and partisan alignment.                                                It is in the writer’s conclusion that although we can say that realignment has taken place in how we vote however there still remains some alignment but its most striking feature is its weakness rather than strength. The writer believes that this could be because of media and educational coverage over general elections this has made voters more critical over which party they vote. People now vote as regards to issue voting, voters look at the policies of the party before they cast their vote. The writer believes that this way of voting is more effective as it will unable the public to chose whether they agree with the policies or not.