Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T02:08:24.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policy Representation, Social Representation and Class Voting in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2013

Oliver Heath
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why does the strength of class voting vary over time? Recent research has emphasized factors related to the structure of political choice at the party level. This article examines different aspects of this choice, and investigates whether voters are more likely to respond to the social or policy cues that parties send voters. The results from the British context suggest that the former are more important than the latter. The central implication of this finding is that social representation matters, and that the social background of political representatives influences how voters relate to political parties.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 173 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London (email: Oliver.Heath@rhul.ac.uk). I would like to thank Heinrich Best, Rosie Campbell, Byron Criddle, Geoffrey Evans, Stefan Jahr, Pippa Norris, the editor and the reviewers for their help, comments and constructive feedback. Online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123413000318.

References

Andersen, Susan, Glassman, Noah Gold, David. 1998. Mental Representations of the Self, Significant Others, and Nonsignificant Others: Structure and Processing of Private and Public Aspects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75:845–861.Google Scholar
Aron, Arthur, Aron, Elaine, Tudor, Michael Nelson, Greg. 1991. Close Relationships as Including Other in the Self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60:241–253.Google Scholar
Bellucci, Paolo Heath, Oliver. 2012. The Structure of Party-organization Linkages and the Electoral Strength of Cleavages in Italy, 1963–2008. British Journal of Political Science 42 (1):107–135.Google Scholar
Bendyna, Mary Lake, Celinda. 1994. Gender and Voting in the 1992 Presidential Election. In The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities, edited by Elizabeth A. Cook, Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox, 237–254. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Berscheid, E. 1985. Interpersonal Attraction. In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by Gardner Lindzey and Elliot Aronson, 413–484. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Best, Henreich Cotta, Maurizio, eds. 2000. Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848–2000: Legislative Recruitment and Careers in Eleven European Countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Budge, Ian, Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Volkens, Andrea, Bara, Judith Tanenbaum, Eric. 2001. Mapping Political Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, David King, Anthony. 1965. The British General Election of 1964. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Don. 1971. The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Byrne, Don, Clore, Gerald Worchel, Philip. 1966. Effect of Economic Similarity-Dissimilarity on Interpersonal Attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 4:220–224.Google Scholar
Childs, Sarah, Webb, Paul Marthaler, Sally. 2010. Constituting and Substantively Representing Women: Applying New Approaches to a UK Case Study. Politics and Gender 6 (2):199–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Harold, Sanders, David, Stewart, Marianne Whitely, Paul. 2004. Political Choice in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cook, Elizabeth. 1994. Voter Responses to Women Senate Candidates. In The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities, edited by Elizabeth Cook, Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox, 217–236. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Cotta, Maurizio Best, Henreich, eds. 2007. Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change, and Convergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Criddle, Byron. 2010. More Diverse, yet More Uniform: MPs and Candidates. In The British General Election of 2010, edited by Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh, 306–329. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cutler, Fred. 2002. The Simplest Shortcut of All: Sociodemographic Characteristics and Electoral Choice. Journal of Politics 64 (2):466–490.Google Scholar
Dolan, Kathleen. 1998. Voting for Women in the ‘Year of the Woman’. American Journal of Political Science 42 (1):272–293.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
van der Eijk, Cees, Franklin, Mark, Mackie, Thomas Valen, Henry. 1992. Cleavages, Conflict Resolution and Democracy. In Electoral change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries, edited by Mark Franklin, Thomas Mackie and Henry Valen, 406–432. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elff, Martin. 2009. Social Divisions, Party Positions, and Electoral Behaviour. Electoral Studies 28 (2):297–308.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert Goldthorpe, John H.. 1992. The Constant Flux. A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey. 2000. The Continued Significance of Class Voting. Annual Review of Political Science 3:401–417.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey, Heath, Anthony Payne, Clive. 1999. Class: Labour as a Catch all Party? In Critical Elections: British Parties and Voters in Long-term Perspective, edited by Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris, 87–101. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey Tilley, James. 2012a. How Parties Shape Class Politics: Explaining the Decline of Class Party Support. British Journal of Political Science 42 (1):137–161.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey Tilley, James. 2012b. The Depoliticization of Inequality and Redistribution: Explaining the Decline of Class Voting. Journal of Politics 74 (4):963–976.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey de Graaf, Nan Dirk, eds. 2013. Political Choice Matters: Explaining the Strength of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-National Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ezrow, Lawrence Xenokasis, Georgios. 2011. Satisfaction With Democracy and Parties’ Policy Offerings. Comparative Political Studies 44 (9):1152–1178.Google Scholar
Franklin, Mark. 1985. The Decline of Class Voting in Britain: Changes in the Basis of Electoral Choice, 1964–1983. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Franklin, Mark. 1992. The Decline of Cleavage Politics. In Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries, edited by Mark Franklin, Thomas Mackie and Henry Valen, 383–405. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Oliver. 2011. The Great Divide: Voters, Parties, MPs and Expenses. In Britain at the Polls 2010, edited by Nicholas Allen and John Bartle, 120–146. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Heath, Oliver Bellucci, Paolo. 2013. Class and Religious Voting in Italy: The Rise of Policy Responsiveness. In Political Choice Matters: Explaining the Strength of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-national Perspective, edited by Geoffrey Evans and Nan Dirk de Graaf, 309–334. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Anthony, Jowell, Roger Curtice, John. 1985. How Britain Votes. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Heath, Anthony, Evans, Geoffrey Payne, Clive. 1995. Modelling the Class-party Relationship in Britain, 1964–1992. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) 158 (3):563–574.Google Scholar
Heider, Fritz. 1958. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Huddy, Leonie. 1994. The Political Significance of Voters’ Gender Stereotypes. Research in Micropolitics 4:169–193.Google Scholar
Huddy, Leonie Terkildsen, Nayda. 1993. Gender Stereotypes and the Perception of Male and Female Candidates. American Journal of Political Science 37 (1):119–147.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Blais, Andre, Brady, Henry Crete, Jean. 1992. Letting the People Decide: Dynamics of a Canadian Election. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1994. The Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laver, Michael, Benoit, Kenneth Garry, John. 2003. Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data. American Political Science Review 97:311–331.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard Gaudet, Hazel. 1968 [1948]. The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign, 3d ed. New York and London: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Barton, Allen H. Linz, Juan J.. 1954. The Psychology of Voting: An Analysis of Political Behaviour. In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by G. Lindzey, 1124–1175. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Liviatan, Ido, Trope, Yaacov Liberman, Nira. 2008. Interpersonal Similarity as a Social Distance Dimension: Implications for Perception of Others’ Action. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (5):1256–1269.Google Scholar
Newcomb, Theodore M. 1956. The Prediction of Interpersonal Attraction. American Psychologist 11:575–586.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa Lovenduski, Joni. 1993. If Only More Candidates Came Forward: Supply-Side Explanations of Candidate Selection in Britain. British Journal of Political Science 23 (3):373–408.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa Lovenduski, Joni. 1995. Political Recruitment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oskarson, Maria. 2005. Social Structure and Party Choice. In The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, edited by Jacques Thomassen, 84–105. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pitkin, Hanna. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1991. The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1985. Capitalism and Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quinn, Tom. 2004. Electing the Leader: The British Labour Party's Electoral College. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 6:333–352.Google Scholar
Rim, So Yon, Uleman, James S. Trope, Yaacov. 2009. Spontaneous Trait Inference and Construal Level Theory: Psychological Distance Increases Nonconscious Trait Thinking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (5):1088–1097.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sigelman, Carol, Sigelman, Lee, Walkosz, Barbara Nitz, Michael. 1995. Black Candidates, White Voters: Understanding Racial Bias in Political Perceptions. American Journal of Political Science 39 (1):243–265.Google Scholar
Tate, Katherine. 1993. From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. Cambridge: Russell Sage, Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Terkildsen, Nayda. 1993. When White Voters Evaluate Black Candidates: The Processing Implications of Candidate Skin Color, Prejudice, and Self-Monitoring. American Journal of Political Science 37 (4):1032–1053.Google Scholar
Thomassen, Jacques, ed. 2005. The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tolleson Rinehart, Sue. 1992. Gender Consciousness and Politics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Heath Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Heath Supplementary Material(File)
File 20.8 KB