Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T15:31:40.870Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2015

Jack Vowles ,
Gabriel Katz  and
Daniel Stevens
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 775 - 794
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

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

*

Jack Vowles is the Professor of Comparative Politics, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140 (Jack.Vowles@vuw.ac.nz). Gabriel Katz is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4QJ (G.Katz@exeter.ac.uk). Daniel Stevens is the Professor in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE (D.P.Stevens@exeter.ac.uk). The authors gratefully acknowledge the reviewers and editors’ helpful and constructive comments. Dan Stevens’ and Jack Vowles’ contributions were partly supported by an ESRC grant, Comparative Cross-National Electoral Research (ES/H030883/1). Further acknowledgments to those who provided, and/or assisted with, data collection can be found in the Online Appendix. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.67

References

Austin, Peter. 2010. ‘Estimating Multilevel Logistic Regression Models When the Number of Clusters is Low: A Comparison of Different Statistical Software Procedures’. International Journal of Biostatistics 6(1):16.Google Scholar
Benoit, Kenneth, Laver, Michael, and Mikhaylov, Slava. 2009. ‘Treating Words as Data with Error: Uncertainty in Text Statements of Policy Positions’. American Journal of Political Science 53(2):495–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blais, Andre, and Rubenson, Daniel. 2013. ‘The Source of Turnout Decline: New Values or New Contexts?’ Comparative Political Studies 46(1):95–117.Google Scholar
Butler, David, and Stokes, Donald. 1974. Political Change in Britain. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Harold, Stewart, Marianne, Sanders, David, and Whiteley, Paul. 2004. Political Choice in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Harold, Stewart, Marianne, Sanders, David, and Whiteley, Paul. 2006. ‘Taking the Bloom Off New Labour’s Rose: Party Choice and Voter Turnout in Britain, 2005’. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 16(1):3–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary, and Munger, Michael. 1989. ‘Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1988 US House Elections’. American Political Science Review 83(1):217–231.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell J. 2007. The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation is Reshaping American Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Denny, Kevin, and Doyle, Orla. 2009. ‘Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 53(1):17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denver, David. 2007. Elections and Voters in Britain. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Denver, David, and Hands, Gordon. 1974. ‘Marginality and Turnout in British General Elections’. British Journal of Political Science 4(1):17–37.Google Scholar
Denver, David, and Hands, Gordon. 1985. ‘Marginality and Turnout in British General Elections in the 1970s’. British Journal of Political Science 15(3):381–385.Google Scholar
Denver, David, Hands, Gordon, and McAllister, Iain. 2003. ‘Constituency Marginality and Turnout in Britain Revisited’. British Elections and Parties Review 13(1):174–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dittmann, Ingolf, Kubler, Dorothea, Maug, Ernst, and Mecthenberg, Lydia. 2014. ‘Why Votes Have Value: Instrumental Voting with Overconfidence and Overestimation of Other’s Errors’. Games and Economic Behavior 84(1):17–38.Google Scholar
Duffy, John, and Tavits, Margit. 2008. ‘Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model’. American Journal of Political Science 52(3):603–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Heather, Ensley, Michael, and Carmines, Edward. 2014. ‘The Enduring Effects of Competitive Elections’. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 24(4):455–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, Mark N. 2004. Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democracies Since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew. 2006. ‘Prior Distributions for Variance Parameters in Hierarchical Models’. Bayesian Analysis 1(3):515–533.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and Hill, Jennifer. 2007. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan, Green, Donald, and Larimer, Christopher. 2008. ‘Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment’. American Political Science Review 102(1):33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grofman, Bernard. 1993. ‘Is Turnout the Paradox that Ate Rational Choice Theory?’. In Bernard Grofman (ed.), Information, Participation, and Choice: An Economic Theory of Democracy in Perspective. 95–103. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Oliver. 2007. ‘Explaining Turnout Decline in Britain 1964-2005: Party Identification and the Political Context’. Political Behavior 29(4):493–516.Google Scholar
Honaker, James, and King, Gary. 2010. ‘What To Do About Missing Values in Time Series Cross-Section Data’. American Journal of Political Science 54(2):561–581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Jonathan, and Katz, Gabriel. 2010. ‘Correcting for Survey Misreports Using Auxiliary Information with an Application to Estimating Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 54(3):815–835.Google Scholar
Kline, Patrick, and Santos, Andres. 2012. ‘A Score Based Approach to Wild Bootstrap Inference’. Journal of Econometric Methods 1:23–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighley, Jan, and Nagler, Jonathan. 2007. ‘Unions, Voter Turnout, and Class Bias in the U.S. Electorate, 1964-2004’. Journal of Politics 69(2):430–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, Michael P., and Tolbert, Caroline. 2012. ‘Perceptions vs. Actual Exposure to Electoral Competition and Political Participation’. Public Opinion Quarterly 76(3):538–554.Google Scholar
Myatt, David P. 2012. ‘A Rational Choice Theory of Voter Turnout’. Unpublished manuscript, London Business School, London, UK. Available at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/events/seminars-workshops-conferences/conferences/politicalecon/turnout-2012.pdfm, accessed 20 February 2014.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Julianna. 2008. ‘Political Socialization in Context: The Effect of Political Competition on Youth Voter Turnout’. Political Behavior 30(4):415–436.Google Scholar
Plutzer, Eric. 2002. ‘Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources and Growth in Young Adulthood’. American Political Science Review 96(1):41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riker, William H., and Ordeshook, Peter. 1968. ‘A Theory of the Calculus of Voting’. American Political Science Review 62(1):25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and Hansen, John M.. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York, NY: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Smets, Kaat. 2012. ‘A Widening Generational Divide? The Age Gap in Voter Turnout Through Time and Space’. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 22(4):407–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Alastair, de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, and LaGatta, Tom. 2012. ‘Group Incentives and Rational Voting’. Paper presented at the 2012 Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, IL, 12--15 April.Google Scholar
Whiteley, Paul. 2005. ‘Forecasting Seats from Votes in British General Elections’. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7(2):165–173.Google Scholar
Whiteley, Paul, Sanders, David, Stewart, Marianne, and Clarke, Harold. 2011. ‘Aggregate Level Forecasting of the 2010 General Election in Britain: The Seats-Votes Model’. Electoral Studies 30(2):278–283.Google Scholar
Xu, Zhiheng, and Hertzberg, Vicki. 2013. ‘Bayesian Area–Age–Period–Cohort Model with Carcinogenesis Age Effects in Estimating Cancer Mortality’. Cancer Epidemiology 37(5):593–600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, Yang, and Land, Kenneth. 2013. Age-Period-Cohort Analysis: New Models, Methods and Empirical Applications. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/CRC.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Vowles supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Vowles supplementary material(File)
File 204.9 KB