Modern Studies Voting Behaviour Essay

This evidence shows the newer generation of Liberals were more influenced by poverty reports and more accepting that they needed to change things. New Liberalism was useful in influencing the Liberal government to pass more social reform as one of the main new liberals, Lloyd George, chancellor of exchequer, had experienced poverty when he was young and he realised that it wasn’t the person’s fault that they were in poverty. However New Liberalism was not as an important factor as the surveys of Booth and Rowntree as the number of new liberals were quite low, were as the poverty reports proved to the whole government that poverty was a huge

Political scientists have made tremendous efforts in discovering what factors influence the voting turnouts. Irrefutably within any country, older citizens and those with higher education and income are more likely to participate in elections; this possibly explains the partisanship, a method of the “ill-informed,” displayed along the east coast, for the educational requirements attributed to these provinces are less than the Canadian national average (Garnier , 2006). When an election has closely contested parties there is a higher voter turnout, for citizens believe that their votes will make more of a difference. In Canada it has been proven that citizens are more likely to vote in national elections than in municipal elections; municipal elections typically garner less than 50% of the voting populace’s support, while national elections have never experienced less than a 60% turnout (Heard, 2011). Proportional representation has been associated with higher voter turnouts; as opposed to Single member plurality systems, the system used in Canada, where voters feel their efforts to make a difference are futile due to the “First

The fact that, in the United Kingdom, we have multiple political parties, with a variety of view points and policies, is exemplary of the fact that political parties enhance democracy. The existence of various political parties gives the public voting options, and provides them with a choice of who governs their country, which is arguably a democratic approach, and encourages public participation. The idea that the public are not only voting for the party and its leaders, but also its policies show that they have an influence in how the country is run. For example the Conservative party (under David Cameron) believes in traditional institutions and values, protecting the rights and interests of property owners, and support the idea that the wealthy do have a responsibility to improve the conditions of the disadvantaged. However modern Labour (under Ed Miliband), emphasises that education is the main driver of social justice and social mobility, agrees that there should generally greater stress on environmental protection, and the party now favors more active state

Many scholars believe that falling civic organization membership and the general decline in our Social Capital has negatively impacted voter turnout.” (Kaufmann. 145) To summarize, people in the United States are “less involved” with other groups and other people as a whole, so it is only logical to feel they would be less involved or interest in our political and governmental future.

As society rapidly changes with an influx of new ideas and issues, studying the college educated and those who are not will help evaluate behaviors and attitudes towards the government, ultimately, clearing the way to adaption into a modern society that perhaps offer remedies of educational and voting discrepancies or even close the gaps between political ideology or identification. Hence, this paper proposes the research question: How does education level influence political party identification.

In recent times it may be argued that personality and image has played a huge part in the voting behaviour of the electorate in the UK. The personality and image may refer to the personality of the party leader and how they present themselves in their campaign. This is a short-term factor and in a time where long-term factors are not said to play a huge role, as there is party de-alignment and a change in the class structure, perceptions of party leadership can play a huge role in determining voting behaviour. It may always have been recognised as a factor but now its influence may have

A voter can be defined as an individual who votes, or has the right to vote, in elections. Voting behaviour is explained using the concepts of expressive voting and strategic voting. A rational voter would act more strategically, that is, the voter would vote to produce an election outcome which is as close as possible to his or her own policy preferences, rather than voting on the basis of party attachment, ideology, or social group membership (expressive voting). Strategic voting has become more important than voting on the basis of political cleavages (expressive voting), so voters have become more rational in their approach, however there is always an element of expressiveness in their behaviour. Political parties were initially formed to represent the interests of particular groups in society however, as these parties became more universal in the appeal of their policy programmes, voting behaviour shifted from expressive to strategic. This essay explores the reasons behind the declining importance of political cleavages, and the rise of strategic voting.

Class, the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status. An economical structure where individuals are grouped in lower, middle and upper class. A social structure powered by gender roles, defining masculinity, manliness and femininity. Are we truly living the American Dream? Throughout this essay we will discuss the condition of the working class, women’s right to vote, taking a look at the rise of the Progressive Era and how it changed relationships between big businesses, government, and the working class.

Between the years of 1945-1970 social class dominantly shaped the voting behaviour of individuals. Whilst there has been a decline in prominence of class voting: Labour remains the most popular working class party and Conservatives perform best among middle-class voters. Social classes are defined by economic and social

Data used for this term paper was obtained from Houghton Mifflin Company through the 1996 Voter's Data Set found as part of the Crosstabs package. The dependent variable (rows) I chose to highlight the 1996 U.S. presidential election voting pattern was the Final Voting Choice. The independent variables (columns) I chose were personal traits such as education, income, age, religious affiliations, race, and gender. The data made available by the Crosstabs program was compiled in a statistically scientific way by a national survey of citizens before and after the 1996 election. The objective of this research is to determine which of the personal traits of the electorate has a positive, negative, or an indifferent impact on voter turnout. Therefore, I have made the following five assertions in the below listed hypotheses:

British society is split into hierarchical categories with “higher” “middle” and “lower working” class. The British class structure is shaped like a pyramid cut into three

McKenzie R.T., 1958. Parties, Pressure Groups and the British Political Process. Vol. 29 ( 1 ), pp. xx.

Many political science researchers study the forces that drive the vote. One of the earliest, and most well known, books about election studies is The American Voter. Written in 1960, the book tries to explain a model that describes what drives Americans to vote the way they do. The model suggests that social factors determine ones party identification, which determines one's issue positions and evaluation of candidate's characteristics. These forces all work together to determine how one will vote. This model may or may not still hold true today, as political researchers are not in agreement as to what exactly drives the vote. One thing that does remain true, however, is that factors such as social groups, party identification, issues,

Some voters cast their ballots based on the emotions such as trust rather than on the candidate's experience or policy. These voters lean toward those candidates who appear to share the voter's concerns on the political issues at the time. They vote for a candidate that appears to be honest and have integrity (Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes, 2011, p.196)

class (60%) and a working class (40%) (Oakland 2011: 187), so the class structure is less