Explaining Turnout Decline in Britain, 1964–2005: Party Identification and the Political Context

Heath, Oliver

doi:10.1007/s11109-007-9039-4

Cited by 34 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Meanwhile Heath (2007) contends that, as the closeness of elections has not diminished over time, this factor can only account for fluctuations in turnout from election to election. He concludes that Franklin's thesis fails to explain the protracted fall of turnout in Britain, and alternatively pinpoints declining party identification as the key long-term factor.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010

Vowles¹,

Katz²,

Stevens³

2015

PSRM

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Analyzing the British Election Study from 1964 to 2010, we examine the influence of electoral context on turnout, focusing on the closeness of elections in terms of lagged seat and constituency-level winning margins. Using cross-classified multilevel models to account for individual and contextual factors and disentangle life cycle, cohort- and election-specific effects, we find that closeness strongly affects voting behavior, particularly among new electors. Widening seat margins in British elections over the last decades have had a persistent impact on turnout. Respondents who faced less competitive environments when young are more likely to abstain in subsequent elections than those reaching voting age after close-fought races. We conclude that variations in competitiveness have had both short- and long-term effects on turnout.

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Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010

Vowles¹,

Katz²,

Stevens³

2015

PSRM

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“…In this study, we seek to refine the analysis of parliamentary political generations. For that purpose, we use findings in Sinclair's study along with scholarship on generational effects in voter studies (Heath ; Tilley ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the Impact of Political Generations: The Class of 94 and Pro‐feminist Ideas in the Swedish Riksdag

Öhberg

Wängnerud²

2013

Scand Pol Stud

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How can one explain the transformation of elected assemblies like national parliaments? In this study it is argued that much can be gained from taking the assumption of political generations more seriously when trying to explain transformations of the political agenda – for example, of themes and topics brought up in the parliamentary process. More specifically, the article expands on previous research in three ways: first, it launches the concept of ‘parliamentary political generation’ where the core element is the combination of an influx of large numbers of newcomers into the elected assembly and an electoral context that is formative – that is, that exhibits characteristics that distinguish the election from other elections. Second, an empirical test is conducted where other factors such as party affiliation and social background characteristics are controlled for. Finally, the test on the impact of parliamentary political generations is conducted in a context – the Swedish Riksdag – where parliamentary party groups are strong. The data used is the Parliamentary Surveys 1985–2010 conducted at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The political generation in focus is the ‘Class of 94’. The results show that the Class of 94 distinguish themselves by being more feminist than their senior colleagues and other groups of newcomers in Swedish elections. This is the feminist generation in Swedish politics.

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“…The reasons for such decline are unclear and have been the subject of much academic debate, with different scholars proposing alternative explanations to account for this decay in political participation. Oliver Heath (2007), for instance, asserts that the drop in turnout in recent U.K. elections goes hand in hand with the erosion of party identification among younger cohorts of eligible voters, whereas Andre Blais and Daniel Rubenson (2013) emphasize the role played by the weakening sense of civic duty-that is, the belief that it is every citizen's duty to vote-among younger generations.…”

Section: Competitiveness On Turnout In the United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

Age–Period–Cohort Models for Electoral Survey Data: An Application to British General Elections, 1964–2010

Wisel¹

2019

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This case study underscores the importance of using age-period-cohort models to disentangle life cycle, generational, and election-specific effects when examining the determinants of long-term political change. I illustrate how these models can be used to study the impact on turnout of the decline in the competitiveness of British elections over the last 50 years, while controlling for other factors that may mask the relationship of interest. A key issue with age-period-cohort models is that standard statistical techniques and software packages are unable to handle relatively large data sets such as the one used in this study, with roughly 40,000 observations from 13 U.K. general elections. During the course of the project, I also had to make hard methodological choices to tackle some of the common challenges that arise when working with electoral surveys, such as turnout over-reporting, high proportion of missing values, and the difficulties in operationalizing relevant-dependent and independent-variables. A fundamental lesson from this case study is that careful consideration of alternative measurement strategies and estimation methods is crucial for the application of age-period-cohort models to repeated cross-sectional electoral surveys, as decisions in these areas can radically affect the substantive conclusions drawn from the data. At a more practical level, the study highlights that researchers may not always be able to rely on canned estimation routines to fit their models. Being able to tailor the estimation approach to the data at hand may thus be critical for the project's success. Learning Outcomes By the end of this case, students should be able to • Comprehend the importance of using age-period-cohort models for repeated cross-sectional survey research • Understand the identification problem behind age-period-cohort models • Appreciate the benefits of using Bayesian inferential techniques for fitting age-period-cohort models and their advantages over alternative-for example, frequentist-estimation methods • Realize that canned routines available in commonly used statistical software packages are not always appropriate for applying age-period-cohort models to "big" political science data, and that sometimes coding their own estimators may be the only way to fit these models • Recognize the importance of accounting for turnout over-reporting and missing data when working with electoral surveys

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Explaining Turnout Decline in Britain, 1964–2005: Party Identification and the Political Context

Cited by 34 publications

References 21 publications

Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010

Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010

Testing the Impact of Political Generations: The Class of 94 and Pro‐feminist Ideas in the Swedish Riksdag

Age–Period–Cohort Models for Electoral Survey Data: An Application to British General Elections, 1964–2010

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