The term ‘partisan alignment’, used in the extract, means the attachment to and identification with the political party. People, who are aligned with a party, support it and vote for it in the elections. Recently, the process of dealignment can be seen among the public. People have become less connected with their parties and they have often become ‘floating’ voters, which means that they tend to change their opinion from election to election. For example, in 1964, 43% of the British citizens were ‘very strong’ supporters of one of the main parties and this number has decreased to only 13% in 2005.
Using your own knowledge as well as the extract, explain how party leaders have become more central to the election campaign.
The election campaign is a period of time when political parties present their policies in order to gain voters before the elections. Leaders of the parties, who are the main representatives of a party and the possible prime ministers, have become more important in their parties campaigns. Firstly, due to a process of personalization of politics, people started to identify themselves with political parties’ leaders and that caused the increase of leaders’ importance in the election times. People want to hear about party’s ideas and policies from the leaders, who became the public faces of their parties and their role is to communicate public policy to the voters. A leaders’ television debates between Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron in 2010 had a significant impact on the results of general election. People wanted to see a confrontation between the most important people in each party, because it provides a possibility for the public to compare and contrast different views of politicians and see the difference in proposed policies. On the other hand, as mentioned in the extract, public dissatisfaction with a leader could affect the results as well, e.g. in the 2005 General Election, Tony Blair’s unpopularity resulted in up to 12 percentage points decrease in Labour Party results. Additionally, due to the process of ‘Americanisation’ of election campaigns, e.g. televised debates, it is the party leader who gets attention of media. People got more interested in leaders’ personal life, as he or she could become their future representative.
Consider the extent to which short-term factors are now far more important than long-term factors in shaping voting behaviour.
Voting behaviour is the way in people choose their representatives in a democratic system. Factors influencing these decisions can be divided into two categories: long and short term. The first group could be described as stable and habitual patterns of voting. On the other hand, short-term factors are causes of more volatile changes in the public’s voting behaviour and they have recently become more important in shaping election’s results.
The main long-term factors are age, gender, ethnicity and religion. Traditionally, they influenced the whole society. People voted according to their believes and ideologies. In recent years the main political parties in the UK have become more centre-ground and that caused these factors to lose their importance. Differences between Labour’s and Coservatives’ policies are smaller and that affected the voters to follow the short-term factors. For example, both parties wanted to gain as many voters from the youth as possible, proposing them similar reforms and ideas on education before the 2010 elections.
Parties’ policies are very important short-term factors of shaping election’s results. In an ‘age of dealignment’ people tend to vote for a policy, which is best for them, regardless of the political party ideology as a whole. Recently, issue-voting and rational choice model gained much influence because people want to choose the best possible policy, which would benefit them directly. For example, people voted for Conservatives in 2010 General Elections, because they did not want higher taxes. Having ‘wrong’ policies, on the other hand, can have just the opposite result. In 1983 the Labour Party presented their manifesto, calles the ‘longest suicide note in history’, proposing extend nationalization, increase in taxation and boosting public spending, which lead to the party’s defeat.
Another short-term factor is the performance of the current government and the economic situation of the country. If people are generally happy with the govermnent’s work and their governing competence they are most likely to vote for the same party, e.g. Margaret Thatcher re-elections. However, if the government did not achieve its goals and did not fulfill its promises it is likely to lose next elections. For example, after the economic crises of 2008/2009 the Labour Party has lost its reputation and credibility and was defeated by the Conservatives. The popular voting behaviour in these kind of situations is tactical voting, which implies voting for the chosen party in order to keep person’s least preferred out of power.
Moreover, the party image has become very important in shaping voting behaviour of the society. That is often influenced by campaigning and powerful parties’ leaders who want to represent their policies and encourage the public to vote for their parties. Nowadays, political parties want to become more connected with the society and create a positive and popular image. Voters want they party to be reliable and accountable. Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ or the David Cameron ‘Big Society’ were both planned to improve the party image.
From the evidence above, it can be seen that nowadays short-term factors are far more important than long-term ones in shaping voting behaviour. They influence everyday politics and people decisions. Parties’ policies, current performances and general image became more significant for the public to base their choices on.
