voting

Question 1

how have cleavages been solidified over time?

Answer 1

• 18th-19th century revolutions created national v reigonal elites
• 19th centruy democratic revolutions traditonale leives v democratic liberals
• indurstial revolutions 19th century wokring v upper classes
• 1920 s universal sufferage solidified calss cleavages

Question 2

economic explaination for political preferences

Answer 2

• marx argues that indivdual political preferences are determined by relatioship to economy production
• weber argues it is determined by your relationship to economic consumption: there is a possibility for soial mobility therfore you rpreferences will change as you make more or less money

Question 3

modern argument explanation of economics setting political preference

Answer 3

dahrendrof argues that growing economic fragmentation and more complex economic interests creates a middle class
- people vote based on their middle class interests

kitschell: preferences determined by type of jobs people do; those in people processing jobs have liberal values comapred to more conservatie alues of those who process data

Question 4

what index is used to measure class voting?

Answer 4

afford index: finds the share of votes for major class based parteis and then how many people of what class voted for them:

% of working class voting of rleft win (-) number of middle classes voting for left wing party

Question 5

examle of afrod index in 2010 elections

Answer 5

labour got 40% De vote and 27% pper class vote leaving theri afford index at 13%

Question 6

example of declining class voting in the UK

Answer 6

in 1964 4/10 voters were either strong tory ot abour comared to 1/10 in 2005

Question 7

causes of class dealigment:

Answer 7

• econmic growth and properity: anyone can make money now so peolpe vote based on thier moeny not class

2) exapnsion of hgigher education: social mobility and diferent intersts as well as developing a cognative society who vote based on logical decisosn rather than class identity

3) mass media
- replacement of party controlled newspapeers
- politicans using media to gain populatiyu like boris johnson on have i got news for you

4) expansion of the social sector
increased GDP by 4050% new social groups and new values and interests

Question 8

what is valence voting?

Answer 8

voting by juding what the governemnt or partie spervios performance has looked like and what they have achived

people also look at the salient issues they have focused on and if these align with their views

Question 9

who coined valence voting?

Answer 9

clarke

Question 10

simplist defintion of valence voting

Answer 10

citizens vote for the governemnt if the economy is doing alright otherwise they vote against it

Question 11

simplist defintion of valence voting

Answer 11

citizens vote for the governemnt if the economy is doing alright otherwise they vote against it

Question 12

what are the different ways people judge governemnts on (miller and wattenburg)

Answer 12

1) temporal: retrospetive v prospective
how have they performed in the past v what have they promised to do in future

2) personal: egocentric or socio-tropic:
voting based on the personal beenfit v voting for the betterment of scoiety

3) performance v position
how has the gov perfromed on an issue that is importnat to an indivdual v perfomance on a whole

Question 13

additional factors of cross country varitian in economic or perfomance voting

Answer 13

• clarity og repsonsbility of political system
• econmic openness and depednencae on other countreis eocnomies or export

Question 14

has there been dealignment or realignment?

Answer 14

there has been class dealignment but some realigment:
voters no longer vote based on socio economic cleavages but increasingly on social and cultural issuesp

parties have then realigned themsleves dependig on what the majoirty of their voters want

Question 15

ingelhart on post materialism

Answer 15

argues we are in a post material socety: people no longer vot for economic gain but for self expression of cultrual views so vote based on gender equality, civil liberties

this shift is a generational one

Question 16

two dimentions of politics

Answer 16

due to the shift to post materialism politics now in most countreis has two dimentions:

1) party competition based on socio-economic polices making people rich

2) socio-cultrual dimention creating policies on immigration and inclusivity to win the younger gernations vote

Question 17

what is issue voting on a macro level?

Answer 17

• increased importance of media for parties to set their agendas
• parties becoming more independent from thier old mass organisations
• party leaderhsip becoming more top down due to less memberhsip
• new issues that arent related to class sucha s the envrioment and immigration

Question 18

what is issue voting on a micro level

Answer 18

• voters make decisons based on single issues (healthcare adn education) which may change election to election
• parteis judges on thier performance or position (clarke)
• has lead t increased crossing of cleavage lines

Question 19

what are the consequences of valence voting

Answer 19

increased importance of issue voting a decreasd impotance of cleavage based voting. parteis still have to appela to their key voter based but also fit to issue oting to get as many votes as possible

Question 20

what is the simplest model of issue voting

Answer 20

• voters have policity postitions they vote based on
• voters are aware of the parties position on these due to manifestos
• they then cmpare these parteis and choose the most applicable one

however issues arent usually this simple and a re mostly multidimentional and so this mdoel doesnt really capture all decision making processes

Question 21

what is issue ownership?

Answer 21

petrotik:
- parties have a reputation about what polciies they are best at (tories economy and labour social welfare)
- voters choose who to vote for based on wat is needed in scoiety and which party owns thse issues
- issue ownership can shift and parteis cna claim new issues suchas. camerons vote blue go green campaign

Question 22

what is the strategic inscentive

Answer 22

parties try to get their issues on te agenda to try an avoid issues other than ones own

Question 23

what is the spatial model of politics when voting and issues

Answer 23

• voters have ‘single-peaked’ preferences on a range of policies.
• each voter has an ideal point of view on each issue. but it is unikely a party will have the same peak so they choose the closest party
• this is called expressive voting

Question 24

what is tactical voting

Answer 24

when voting trying to influence the outcome of the election so the overall policy outcome is closest to their ideal policy

Question 25

why do people vote tactically?

Answer 25

1) if people want o affect the outcome of local represenative
if the candiate yu want to win has no chance of winning you vote for the peron who is closest in ideas to that candiate and has a chance of winning so that some of your views are presented

2) if you want to affect the governemtn formation and national policy
- voting for a party who has a chance of being in the governemnt or coalition that will have poicies close to your peak but have more of a chance at gettin in than the party that best represents you

Question 26

factors for not voting:

Answer 26

• social factors suchas age, education and occupation
• efficancy: perception that your vote doesnt matter and wont change anything
• lack of political knolwedge
• lack of ebelif that voting is a civic duty
• if both parties have similar policies then why vote if they dont represent you?

Question 27

who coined issue ownership?

Answer 27

petrocik