tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/voter-behaviour-39343/articlesVoter behaviour – The Conversation2024-03-22T16:20:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2261752024-03-22T16:20:37Z2024-03-22T16:20:37ZYour brain can reveal if you’re rightwing – plus three other things it tells us about your politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582865/original/file-20240319-16-j5ck59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=182%2C47%2C3013%2C1743&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/human-brain-technology-background-neon-colors-2277475403">Shutterstock/MrVander</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A few years ago, the leader of Mexico’s PRI party told the New York Times that he, “would stick to tried and trusted campaign tools, like polls and political intuition”, and rely on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/americas/mexicos-governing-party-vows-to-stop-using-neuromarketing-to-study-voters.html?_r=0">“the old-fashioned way”</a> to win the country’s election.</p>
<p>His party had been caught using neuroscience to gauge voters’ opinions about their candidate for the presidency and the party was embarrassed. Subsequently, we know from other sources the party carried on using neuroscience techniques. Someone even described their approach as <a href="http://www.alcaldesdemexico.com/notas-principales/neuropolitica-una-nueva-forma-de-ganar-elecciones">“the new way to win elections”</a>. </p>
<p>The approach is called neuropolitics and uses brain science to understand our politics. It applies the insights of neurology to explain why we take part in protests, vote for particular parties and even why we lie about our true feelings in opinion polls, potentially skewing the results to give the public a false impression of who is going to win.</p>
<p>I studied neuroscience before I gained a doctorate in political science. Back then the study of the brain was a utopian strain of research, but things have changed. And this has political implications. The Mexican case is one example of politicians exploiting neuroscience to their electoral advantage, but there are many others, which I write about in my new book The Political Brain. </p>
<p>It might seem like science fiction. But it is a fact. We already know a lot about how our brains influence our political beliefs and reveal our political views. Here are just four things your brain can reveal about your politics – and believe me, there are plenty more.</p>
<h2>1. Which politicians you like</h2>
<p>Let’s start with the basics. Advances in social neuroscience mean that we can identify the parts of the brain that get activated when you watch political advertisements – and a host of other things. We can do this because of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI scans).</p>
<p>When we think, the brain needs oxygen. This oxygen is carried around with blood. Because blood contains iron, which is magnetic, it shows up in a magnetic scanner. So, if I see photos of a person in distress, more blood will flow to an area on the side of the brain called insula. </p>
<p>To take an example, when we want to buy something – or when we like a particular election candidate – we activate a part of the brain that is called the ventral striatum. It is part of the so-called basal ganglia, a part of the brain that is associated with rewards. </p>
<p>So, if your brain is activated when you see candidate A, it is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jmr.13.0593">a cue that you will vote for him or her</a>. </p>
<p>This also works at the microlevel. When we like something, the area is bombarded with a neurotransmitter called dopamine. When we see photos or films of a candidate we like, there is more dopamine in the ventral striatum.</p>
<h2>2. If you’re centre-left</h2>
<p>We need to be cautious because the brain is a complex machine, and no single area is responsible for how we think. But some areas are associated with political thinking. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/">study</a> – co-written by actor <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/colin-firth-actor-writer-academy-award-winner-scientist-14276499/#:%7E:text=A%20study%20on%20political%20orientation,but%20about%20which%20I'm">Colin Firth</a> – found that “greater liberalism [left-wing thinking] was associated with increased grey matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex”. This part of the brain is associated with empathy. So, maybe this research proves that those on the left are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/">more empathetic.</a>. </p>
<p>We should perhaps add that The King’s Speech, Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’ Diary star was guest editing the BBC radio programme Today when he commissioned researchers to carry out the study. He doesn’t have a secret second career as a neuroscientist, though the work he proposed is legitimate science that has been through rigorous peer review and published in a top biology journal.</p>
<h2>3. If you’re centre-right</h2>
<p>That was the leftwing brain. What about conservatives or the centre-right? Well, individuals of this persuasion tend to be sceptical of change and cautious when they make choices. The brain region associated with these traits is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, on the topside of the brain.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-signs-that-you-might-be-rightwing-221930">Five signs that you might be rightwing</a>
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<p>Sure enough, researchers found that this part was activated when subjects were exposed to video clips with political messages or images of people living <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17470910902860308?casa_token=PhgOQe0CEEQAAAAA:DdtdJf5-r2-li20J9Nmxwu0wTMxGmMMTUl7bjEGwvDCQucU20hhrJHgZkCYDXh_VzFqbHjfi65urKA">alternative lifestyles</a> – something that perhaps suggests a negative response to these lifestyles. </p>
<h2>4. If you’re receptive to authoritarianism</h2>
<p>So far we have looked at moderate leftists and moderate conservatives, but some people take more extreme positions. Some describe themselves as religious fundamentalists and are willing to use violence to stop abortion, for example. Others self-identify with the far right of the political spectrum.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22612576/">small study of these people</a> found that their brains – when under the fMRI scanner – show signs of damage to the so-called ventro-medial prefrontal cortex. This is an area that is associated with social intelligence and tolerance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration of a brain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582851/original/file-20240319-9351-5z2yxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Are the routes to fascism all in our heads?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Betacam-SP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It is tempting to draw conclusions, but it should be added that those with extreme views on both the far right and the far left <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/differences-in-negativity-bias-underlie-variations-in-political-ideology/72A29464D2FD037B03F7485616929560">show activation of the amygdala</a> when they are shown clips of political opponents. Amygdala is the part of the brain that kicks in if we are in mortal danger, such as when we see a snake.</p>
<h2>The predicting brain</h2>
<p>Some might find this scary. Maybe it is. Whatever you think, we already know that we can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4245707/">predict ideology with up to 85% accuracy</a>.</p>
<p>Neuropolitics is certainly weird, and perhaps even worrying but when used to in pure research, it opens the prospect of combining the natural sciences with the moral sciences. A bit like the philosopher <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4705">David Hume</a> dreamed of doing in the 18th century, when he endeavoured to “introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects”, we too can combine science and philosophy.</p>
<p>You might choose to ignore it. But, it is already being used in the real world of political advertising. It is no longer fiction. when it is abused, it can be dangerous. That’s why we need to talk about it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Qvortrup does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Neuropolitics is the science of using your brain activity to predict your political preferences. You might not like it but it’s already in use.Matt Qvortrup, Chair of Applied Political Science, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251182024-03-08T16:20:11Z2024-03-08T16:20:11ZLabour’s Muslim vote: what the data so far says about the election risk of Keir Starmer’s Gaza position<p>According to the 2021 census, 6.5% of the population in England and Wales <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021">identify as Muslim</a>. In <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-religion/">Rochdale</a>, which has just elected George Galloway to be its MP, the proportion of the population identifying as Muslim is far higher – at 30.5%.</p>
<p>As is often the case in byelections, the turnout for the contest that elected Galloway was low. But Galloway received 12,335 votes in a constituency which contains 34,871 Muslims. His campaign focused almost entirely on the war in Gaza rather than local issues, and although we don’t know what proportion of his vote was Muslim, it is a fair assumption that a large percentage of it was.</p>
<p>The question in the wake of Galloway’s election (and one that the new MP is certainly encouraging) is whether this byelection has any implications for Labour in the general election taking place this year?</p>
<p>Keir Starmer has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68446423">argued</a> that Galloway won because the Labour candidate was sacked after repeating a conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Hamas attack on October 7 last year. Galloway, by contrast, argues that his victory is a sign that voters are about to turn away from Labour in their droves because they are angry about its failure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.</p>
<p>Which of them is right? </p>
<h2>The Muslim vote</h2>
<p>There are 20 constituencies in the UK that have an electorate comprised of more than 30% Muslims. All of them elected a Labour MP in 2019. At the top of the list is Birmingham Hodge Hill, where 62% of the population identifies as Muslim. </p>
<p>In Bradford West 59% of the population is Muslim, in Ilford South, 44%, and in Leicester South, 32%. Rochdale ranks 18th in the list of the 20 constituencies with the largest proportion of Muslim residents. Interestingly enough, just under 19% of the electorate in Holborn and St Pancras, Keir Starmer’s constituency, identifies as Muslim.</p>
<p>There are currently 199 Labour MPs in the House of Commons – a slight reduction from the 202 who were elected in 2019. A bare majority in the House of Commons requires 326 MPs and a working majority more like 346. The party clearly has a mountain to climb to achieve that, even with a lead of around <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/#national-parliament-voting-intention">20% in current polls</a>.</p>
<p>So Starmer will certainly be asking whether Labour can still expect to win seats with a high proportion of Muslim voters in a way that it has done in the past, given what happened in Rochdale. He continues to equivocate over the deaths in Gaza and still follows the government’s line on the conflict, despite it being essentially a colonial war. </p>
<p>Historically, Labour has had a long tradition of anti-colonialism. After the second world war, it was a Labour government that began the process of de-colonisation in the British empire by giving independence to India in 1947.</p>
<h2>When is a safe seat not a safe seat?</h2>
<p>There is an argument that constituencies with a high proportion of Muslims are relatively safe Labour seats. This is evidenced by the fact that they remained in the Labour camp even when the party suffered a heavy defeat in 2019. The implication is that if anger over Gaza is confined to Muslims, then it is not going to affect the number of seats won by Labour very much.</p>
<p>However, concern about Gaza is shared by people other than Muslims. Polling from YouGov conducted last month shows that there has been a distinct shift in British public opinion about the war since it started. More people are calling for a ceasefire and fewer see Israel’s attacks on Gaza as being <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/48675-british-attitudes-to-the-israel-gaza-conflict-february-2024-update">justified</a>.</p>
<p>There is clear evidence that younger voters, in particular, feel <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2024/02/12/4b134/1">more sympathy</a> towards the Palestinian cause than the rest of the population. This is also a group that heavily supported Labour in the 2019 election. While young people in this group are unlikely to switch to voting Conservative over Gaza, the concern for Labour will be that they might <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?q=Brexit+Britain">abstain</a> in the next election.</p>
<h2>How different religions vote</h2>
<p>Starmer’s reluctance to call out what is happening in Gaza is a puzzle, since Muslims are overwhelmingly Labour supporters. This can be seen in data from the <a href="https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/">British Election Study</a> online panel survey conducted after the 2019 general election. The chart shows the relationship between the religious affiliation of the respondents and their voting behaviour in that election.</p>
<p><strong>Religious Affiliation and Voting in the 2019 General Election:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing that support for Labour is far higher among Muslims than other religions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580681/original/file-20240308-26-9vs223.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How religious identity maps onto party preference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Election Study</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Church of England used to be described as the “Tory party at prayer” and it clearly remains so today, since 64% of Church of England identifiers supported the Conservatives compared to just 25% who supported Labour. </p>
<p>In contrast, Roman Catholics were marginally more Labour (42%) than Conservative (41%). Nonconformists were similar to Church of England identifiers with 48% Conservative and 25% Labour. Meanwhile, 43% of atheists and agnostics supported Labour and 34% the Conservatives.</p>
<p>Jewish voters favoured the Conservatives by a margin of 56% to 30% Labour. Finally, Muslim voters favoured Labour by a massive 80% compared with the Conservative’s 13%.</p>
<p>If anger over the Gaza war is confined to Muslims it is not likely to influence the outcome of this year’s election. But it is worth remembering that this is not the first time Labour has been damaged by events in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Support for Tony Blair was greatly weakened by his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 at the request of the then US president, George W. Bush. He has never really lived down the reputation he acquired for this mistake.</p>
<p>There is not yet evidence that Labour’s position on Gaza will cost it a majority in the election but the strength of feeling on this issue is growing and the future is not certain. With hundreds of additional seats needed, Starmer can’t afford to take any for granted. The risk of losing these voters to the Conservatives is marginal but the risk of losing them to apathy and disillusionment should have him reconsidering his position.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC</span></em></p>Labour’s Muslim vote is concentrated in safe seats – but with an electoral mountain to climb, no contest can be taken for granted.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189512023-12-20T16:05:44Z2023-12-20T16:05:44ZPeople love to vote in a new democracy – and then they rapidly lose interest<p>Poland’s recent election has been hailed as a great triumph of democracy in <a href="https://v-dem.net/documents/30/V-dem_democracyreport2023_highres.pdf">a global environment of democratic backsliding</a>. It brought to power a coalition of pro-democratic forces led by <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-government-election-donald-tusk-mateusz-morawiecki-andrzej-duda/">Donald Tusk</a>, the former president of the European Council. </p>
<p>This election was also considered a historical landmark because it saw Poland record <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/huge-turnout-poland-decisive-elections/story?id=104004666#:%7E:text=Nearly%252074%2525%2520of%2520voters%2520turned%2520out%2520to%2520polling%2520stations%2520on%2520Sunday.&text=From%25207%2520a.m.%2520onward%2520Sunday,ballots%2520needed%2520to%2520be%2520printed.">its highest voter turnout since 1919</a>. Participation was even higher than the election that cemented the fall of Communism, paving the way for democracy in the first place.</p>
<p>Yet this election seems to be an outlier. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00104140231194922">Patterns of voter turnout</a> over several decades have shown <a href="https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/voter-turnout-trends-around-the-world.pdf">a systematic and consistent</a> decline. And this decline is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/does-democratic-consolidation-lead-to-a-decline-in-voter-turnout-global-evidence-since-1939/9A234A962871A9580C8A32D62FB6B717">much more accelerated in new democracies</a>, such as those that have transitioned away from communism following the end of the USSR. </p>
<p>This pattern is puzzling. We might expect enthusiasm for democratic transitions to boost voter turnout. Citizens who have ached to exert their democratic rights during a long period of political repression might naturally head out to the polls in their droves. </p>
<p>In the immediate term, this is the case. The euphoria and enthusiasm of the democratic transition can lead to higher turnout in a new democracy’s first election after transition. </p>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00104140231194922">examined electoral turnout</a> in 1,086 elections across 100 countries between 1946 and 2015 and found that turnout in the first election after a democratic transition is about three percentage points higher than other elections (in new and established democracies).</p>
<p>But the high turnout rate in the first election is a short-term phenomenon. The rate of participation in new democracies drops consistently as more elections are held.</p>
<p>Tunisia is a prime example. The turnout in its first parliamentary free election in 2011 after the <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/tunisia-can-bounce-back-authoritarianism-proper-support">fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali</a> was over 90%. But once the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00104140231194922">complicated realities of building democracy set in</a>, turnout tumbled dramatically. </p>
<p>Wrangling over institutional design and the redistribution of political power and resources meant that excitement dissipated and was replaced by <a href="https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/11/12/tunisia-a-failed-democratic-experiment/">disappointment with democracy.</a> Tunisians lost their faith in the ability of political actors to keep democracy alive. Participation declined sharply in this period. In <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/low-voter-turnout-in-tunisian-elections-casts-doubt-on-future-parliaments-legitimacy">the most recent election</a> in 2023, turnout barely reached 11%.</p>
<h2>Rapid disillusionment</h2>
<p>The plummet in voter turnout that new democracies experience could be explained by voters rapidly becoming disillusioned with the reality of democracy. That’s not to say they’d return to the undemocratic systems of their past but that they don’t feel enthusiastic enough to go to the polling station on election day.</p>
<p>In the first election after the transition to democracy, also referred to as the founding election, a country’s electoral politics naturally focuses on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6207585/Book_Elections_in_Estonia_1990_1992_Transitional_and_Founding">pitting opponents and supporters</a> of the former autocracy against those who wanted to overthrow it. But that soon evolves into something more mundane – regular electoral politics in which parties compete over voters based on <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0010414006293857">partisanship, ideology or policy preferences</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, the binary choice between autocracy and democracy excites voters, while the choices of regular electoral politics may increase apathy among voters. More simply, <a href="https://v-dem.net/media/publications/uwp_41_final.pdf">voters in new democracies may not be used (yet)</a> to the complicated reality of elections in democracy.</p>
<h2>Young revolutionaries become active voters</h2>
<p>The evidence suggests that the way in which a country transitions to democracy <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-dissent-to-democracy-9780190097318?cc=us&lang=en&">plays a part</a> in the political attitudes and behaviours of its citizens. Transitions driven by <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156837">non-violent, mass mobilisation</a> have the potential to socialise people into developing more pro-democratic attitudes. This is perhaps because citizens are made aware of their power to influence politics via participation and therefore become active participants in politics afterwards.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00104140231194922">My research</a>, which used survey data to capture electoral turnout among 1.2 million respondents from 85 democracies between 1982 and 2015, shows that this is a more powerful force among people who experience the transition to democracy during <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026137941300084X">their formative years</a>. </p>
<p>Those who transition to democracy between the ages of 15 and 29 are two percentage points more likely to turn out to vote later in life compared to those who experienced the transition outside their formative years, or voters from established democracies that never experienced a transition. People who experienced a transition to democracy after they turned 30 were less likely to turn out to vote in new democracies.</p>
<p>The transition may have socialised the first cohort into being more pro-democratic because younger people are more likely to participate in protests – and experience the violent consequences of doing so. They are also more receptive to unorthodox ideas that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24357881">challenge old forms of power</a>.</p>
<p>The different experiences of the older cohort may suggest the socialising effect of democratic transitions may not be able to fully replace <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414019858958?journalCode=cpsa">the socialisation experience of living under autocracy</a>. Being socialised in an environment in which political participation is discouraged and strictly regulated by the government <a href="https://v-dem.net/media/publications/uwp_41_final.pdf">creates habits of disengagement from politics</a> that may not be fully reversed by the excitement of experiencing a democratic transition. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/voter-turnout-trends-around-the-world.pdf">The global decline in voter turnout</a>, particularly in new democracies, is a worrying sign for the health of democracy. These findings suggest that countering this trend means encouraging people to see participating in democracy as being as important – and exciting – as overthrowing a dictatorship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roman Gabriel Olar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voting patterns over decades show how hard it is to maintain enthusiasm for democracy.Roman Gabriel Olar, Assistant Professor in Political Science, Dublin City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167982023-11-02T16:23:39Z2023-11-02T16:23:39ZNew Labour dominance in the 1990s is now weakening the Conservative voter pipeline<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557095/original/file-20231101-28-isf2g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=868%2C7%2C3562%2C1482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/people-head-avatar-set-different-smile-1737052175">Shutterstock/Olga_Lots</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first glance, this quote, attributed to Winston Churchill, appears to fit the evidence in Britain. A survey conducted during the 2019 general election reported in our recent book showed that 23% of respondents under the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?q=%20Brexit+Britain">age of 30 voted Conservative and 55% voted Labour</a>. In contrast, 59% of the over 65s voted Conservative and only 13% voted Labour.</p>
<p>However, a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between age and voting in Britain over a period of 55 years from 1964 to 2019 shows that growing older does not directly affect support for the Conservatives. At the same time, it does appear to influence Labour voting. As voters get older they are a bit more likely to support Labour but not the Conservatives. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379423001178">paper which presents these findings</a> is part of a special issue of the journal Electoral Studies, being published in memory of our late colleague, political scientist Harold Clarke, who edited the journal for many years.</p>
<p>How is this rather counter-intuitive finding explained? The answer is that the relationship between age and voting is more complex than many people think. Political behaviour can certainly be affected by life-cycle effects – that is, people changing their politics as they grow older. But this is not the whole story. There are two additional aspects of age-related voting which need to be considered.</p>
<h2>Election campaigns</h2>
<p>The first is what is described as a period effect. This refers to the fact that specific election campaigns can influence age-related voting. </p>
<p>For example, the 2019 election took place after three years of political turmoil following the referendum on UK membership of the European Union. In the event, Boris Johnson’s slogan “Get Brexit Done” proved very effective and the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority.</p>
<p>This was very different from the 2017 election in which a barnstorming campaign by the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and a stumbling campaign by prime minister Theresa May resulted in a Conservative minority government. These campaign-related differences can affect the relationship between age and voting independently of life-cycle effects.</p>
<h2>Generational effect</h2>
<p>The second factor which needs to be considered are cohort effects. These arise from the fact that each new generation has different socialisation experiences which influence their political beliefs and voting behaviour. </p>
<p>For the most part children in their early teens do not pay much attention to politics. As they grow older, they become politically aware so that their attitudes and behaviour are formed in late adolescence and early adulthood. As this happens, they are influenced by the economic and political circumstances of the time.</p>
<p>This means, for example, that voters who came of age politically in the relatively affluent 1960s are likely to look at the world differently from those who came of age in the turbulent 2010s. This is different from a life-cycle effect because <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691613796%20/the-silent-revolution">research shows</a> that once acquired these attitudes and values remain relatively stable over time as people grow older, even when their social and economic circumstances change.</p>
<p>It turns out that separating life-cycle, period and cohort effects is a tricky exercise. But when it is done, it shows something rather surprising. </p>
<p>For Labour there are no discernible cohort effects but there are life-cycle and a few period effects. This means that to win elections, Labour needs to do well on the key issues such as the management of the economy and have a leader who is viewed positively by voters. </p>
<p>For Labour, these factors have a more powerful impact on voting than age. In addition, it helps the party to have a significant group of voters who identify themselves as loyal supporters. These measures change more rapidly over successive elections than age does, and so are more important.</p>
<p>For the Conservatives, there are very strong cohort effects and a small number of period effects – but no life-cycle effects. In other words, ageing alone does not account for people turning towards the party. It is more about cohort differences. And this has greatly weakened support for the party over time. </p>
<h2>Local party infrastructure in decline</h2>
<p>The Conservatives have traditionally relied on a strong cohort of voters who were socialised in their formative years by family, communities and social ties to be loyal supporters. They would generally support the party because they learned to do so when they became politically aware in their youth. </p>
<p>The problem is that this source of support has now greatly weakened, so that new cohorts, such as the one socialised during the austerity years following the 2010 election, cannot be counted on to identify with the party. In fact, they are very opposed to it.</p>
<p>There are a number of reasons why the socialisation mechanisms underlying Conservative support have declined in this way. It appears from the data that the era of Labour dominance between 1997 and 2010 weakened many of the normal processes of socialisation which the Conservatives relied on previously. </p>
<p>Far fewer people learned to support the Conservatives during this period. In that respect New Labour changed the political landscape.</p>
<p>A second factor is the decline in the Conservative party as a voluntary organisation in the community. In the 1950s the party had the largest grassroots membership of any party in Europe. A large, well-organised grassroots party with a significant youth movement is an excellent mechanism for socialising people into lifelong support for the party, but <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Footso-ldiers-Political-Party-Membership-in-the-21st-Century/Bale-Webb-Poletti/p/book/%209781138302464">this has now disappeared</a>.</p>
<p>With each election relying on short-term forces such as issues and voter evaluations of leaders, rather than longer-term forces anchored in family and community attachments, general elections in the future will become more volatile and unpredictable. And if the Conservatives lose the next general election on the scale of their 1997 defeat it may be a very long time before they can hope to win again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. </span></em></p>Fewer people are being ‘socialised’ into Conservative voting since the dominance of New Labour in the 1990s.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156482023-10-18T16:02:38Z2023-10-18T16:02:38ZPeople experiencing news fatigue are less likely to be voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553747/original/file-20231013-27-r0j6ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C61%2C5080%2C3241&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Shyntartanya</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a comprehensive analysis of news consumption across the globe, a recent report by Reuters concluded that “interest in news continues to decline, fuelling disengagement and selective news avoidance”. In the 46 countries surveyed in the report, public interest in news has dropped significantly in the UK, France, the US and Spain <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Digital_News_Report_2023.pdf">over the eight year period from 2015 to 2023</a>.</p>
<p>The study was commissioned by the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism</a> at the University of Oxford, which has been publishing reports on citizen media use in various countries since 2012. The fieldwork for the online surveys was done by YouGov in early 2023. They show that Britain has a particular problem.</p>
<p>The percentage of survey respondents who said that they were “extremely” or “very” interested in news in Britain fell from 70% in 2015 to 43% in 2023. A similar problem has occurred in the US, although it is not as bad as Britain. In the US 67% of respondents were “extremely” or “very” interested in the news in 2015, but this had fallen to 49% by 2023. Both represent huge changes in media consumption of news over this eight-year period.</p>
<p>As a result, large numbers of people are simply disassociating themselves from news about politics and current affairs. They have become disconnected citizens. The report points out that: “these declines in news interest are reflected in lower consumption of both traditional and online media sources in most cases”. Clearly, this is not just driven by people moving online from traditional media outlets, although this is of course happening.</p>
<p>In the Reuters Institute’s 2022 report, survey respondents gave a number of reasons why they have become disconnected from the news. Some 29% said they were “worn out by the quantity of news” and another 29% they felt “news is untrustworthy and biased”. </p>
<p>Another 36% said the news brings down their mood. These feelings have given rise to a growing group of people who actively avoid the news. In Britain 24% of respondents did this in 2017 but by 2022 it was 46%. The number of people who don’t want to know has doubled in five years.</p>
<h2>Double disillusionment?</h2>
<p>The Reuters report did not investigate the political effects of this development, which was beyond the scope of their remit. But there is a lively literature in political science about the effects of the media on political participation. In an influential book, political scientists Shanto Iyengar and Stephen Ansolabehere showed that attack adverts, which are such a feature of US political campaigns, <a href="https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/publications/going-negative-how-political-advertisements-shrink-and-polarize-electorate">demobilise people from participating</a>.</p>
<p>We can gain insights on this point by looking at data from the <a href="https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/about/national-pages/united-kingdom/english">2020 European Social Survey for Britain</a>. These are very high-quality surveys and provide accurate information on what Europeans in general think about politics and the media. One of the questions in the survey asked: “on a typical day, about how much time do you spend watching, reading or listening to news about politics and current affairs?”.</p>
<p><strong>Voting in the UK General Election Compared with Time Spent Following Politics and Current Affairs in the Media, 2020</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chart showing British people who engaged with the news are more often voters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553743/original/file-20231013-27-i4rjiz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">News fatigue and voter turnout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/ESS</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chart shows the relationship between time spent by respondents acquiring information about politics and current affairs and their reported turnout in the previous general election. </p>
<p>There is a strong relationship between voting turnout and media usage. Only 49% of people who spent no time at all on news gathering turned out to vote while 33% of them did not vote. In fairness, 19% of this group were not eligible to vote, since the survey picked up people who are not on the electoral register. Even so, if we look at the group who spent one to two hours looking for news about politics, 91% of them voted and only 6% failed to do so. It is clear that media usage and participating in elections are closely related.</p>
<p>Further analysis shows that a similar pattern is evident in relation to other forms of democratic participation. It is people who are engaging with the news that are turning up to exercise their right to protest, for example.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chart showing that higher turnout leads to great vote share for The Conservatives." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554540/original/file-20231018-19-fxuw6x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Conservatives are hit by low turnout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">P Whiteley</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Media malaise damages political participation in general and given the massive changes highlighted in the Reuter’s report it could indicate that a lower turnout should be expected in the next general election. If we examine all 21 general elections in Britain since 1945, there is a strong correlation between turnout and the Conservative vote. The more people vote, the better the Conservative party does in the election.</p>
<p>There is also a positive relationship between turnout and Labour voting, but it is significantly weaker. Both parties would be damaged by lower turnout in the next election as a result of media malaise, but the Conservatives would be damaged more than Labour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. </span></em></p>More and more people are saying they don’t trust the news or can’t face engaging with it – and that appears to have political implications.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140192023-09-20T23:08:20Z2023-09-20T23:08:20ZWomen used to be more likely to vote Conservative than men but that all changed in 2017 – we wanted to find out why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549332/original/file-20230920-17-jymd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=305%2C62%2C5686%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/AJP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In many nations in the immediate post-war period, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pippa-Norris-2/publication/246291242_Gender_A_Gender-Generation_Gap/links/569153d408ae0f920dcb78af/Gender-A-Gender-Generation-Gap.pdf">women were more often supporters of rightwing parties than men</a>. This “traditional” gender gap was supposedly underpinned by women’s greater religiosity and lower exposure to the social institutions of the left, such as trade unions.</p>
<p>However, in many wealthy nations, a “modern” gender gap has emerged. Women in these nations are more likely to support leftwing parties than men. For example in the US, a greater proportion of women than men have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/ggpresvote.pdf">every election since 1980</a>.</p>
<p>When seeking to explain why women and men vote differently, research has long emphasised the role of gendered values change. This is the idea that generation by generation, our values shift and our political leanings also shift to fit those new values. </p>
<p>But in a chapter for this year’s <a href="https://natcen.ac.uk/british-social-attitudes">British Social Attitudes survey</a>, we’ve found that in the UK, the gender gap in voting seems more tied to changing events than changing values.</p>
<p>Political scientists <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192512100214007">Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris</a> described women’s leftward shift as a generational process. In this model, younger cohorts of women, who have experienced higher labour force participation, higher education, and less traditional gender roles, become more economically left-leaning, socially liberal and supportive of gender equality. This pushes them to the left of men in their party choices.</p>
<p><strong>The British two-party gender gap, 1945–2019:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chart showing women were more likely to support the Conservatives than men until 2017 when the trend reversed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549309/original/file-20230920-29-amebma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The percentage point difference between men and women in party support, with numbers below zero showing women more likely to vote Conservative than men and numbers above zero showing the opposite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gallup Polls, 1945–59; British Election Study (BES), 1964–2019Adapted from P. Norris, ‘Gender: a gender generation gap? (Norris 1999)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That shift has only happened in the UK very recently. Data from the British Election Study indicates that women were more likely to vote for the Conservative party than men right up until the 2017 general election, when they became more likely to vote Labour than men. And we have reason to believe that the shift is not because women’s values have changed over generations. </p>
<p><strong>Gender gap in partisan identification, by generation, 1983-2022:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing that the gender gap in party support varies depending on the generation being looked at." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549331/original/file-20230920-17-npue1l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">percentage point gender gap for different generations across the years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The British Social Attitudes survey contains a long-term measure of party identification that allows us to test underlying patterns of support for the two largest parties. This data provides some evidence that the emergence of the modern gender gap in recent years is the product of underlying generational differences. </p>
<p>In general, the gaps for the two youngest generations tend to be above zero, indicating higher support for Labour among women in these groups. And the gaps for these generations reach up to around 15 percentage points.</p>
<p>In contrast, the gaps for the two oldest generations are more often below zero, indicating higher support for the Conservatives among women of these generations. The generational divide in the gender gap is particularly evident from the mid-2000s onwards. Prior to this, there are fewer generational differences in the gender gap.</p>
<h2>Did we change – or did you?</h2>
<p>However, while there is a generational gap, it does not appear to be based on changing values. We find no evidence that economic or social attitudes exhibit similar gendered generational patterns. </p>
<p>For example, although women are slightly more likely than men to support higher taxation and spending on public services, this is true across the generations. The gender gap itself does not increase among younger cohorts.</p>
<p>Instead we find that gender differences in attitudes towards Britain’s membership of the EU are a potentially more powerful explanation. Overall, women more often reported wanting to stay in the EU with no change in its powers than men. But this difference between men and women is generally larger and more consistent for the younger (1960-79 and post-1980) generations than for the oldest. </p>
<p>So in the younger age cohorts, a greater proportion of women than men were committed to staying in the EU in 2017 and 2019. This may account for the emergence of the gender gap in party support. </p>
<p>There is a difference between men and women in the older generations on wanting to stay in the EU, but this gap tends to reduce from the mid-2000s. After 2019, there was more convergence between the sexes across generations (with differences between men and women reducing), perhaps reflecting the fact that Brexit has fallen in salience.</p>
<p><strong>Gender gaps in attitudes to the European Union, by generation, 1983-2022:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing the gender difference for attitudes towards the EU." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549348/original/file-20230920-15-ohyouj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage in support of the UK staying in the EU with no change in its powers .</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://natcen.ac.uk/events/british-social-attitudes-2023">British Social Attitudes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The gender gap in party support that emerged in the 2017 and 2019 elections may therefore be the result of the interaction between electoral context, including party policy and pre-existing gender gaps in attitudes and values, such as the greater support for the EU evident among younger cohorts of women than men. Both campaigns were fought around Brexit, after all. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/what-women-want-why-women-will-decide-the-next-election">findings</a> are in keeping with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2021.1968412">recent research</a> that has shown that the salient political issues of the day, including attitudes towards Brexit and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1369148119864699">public services such as the NHS</a>, and financial and economic concerns are more powerful explanations of the gender gap in party support than long-term values change. </p>
<p>This suggests that Labour cannot afford to be complacent about women voters. Their switch is not necessarily a natural generational trajectory and their support in the next election is not guaranteed if they don’t like the party’s policy positions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosie Campbell receives funding from the ESRC, the UKRI, The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalind Shorrocks receives funding from the ESRC and UKRI. </span></em></p>Research has long suggested that women shift left on a generational basis, but we think something else is happening here.Rosie Campbell, Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Professor of Politics, King's College LondonRosalind Shorrocks, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135332023-09-19T19:00:17Z2023-09-19T19:00:17ZControlling the political narrative is key to winning the NZ election – no easy task for Chris Hipkins<p>Last night’s live TV <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/20/first-leaders-debate-the-big-issues-from-luxon-v-hipkins-clash/">leaders debate</a> between Labour’s Chris Hipkins and National’s Christopher Luxon made clear the policy and leadership style differences between the two contenders to become New Zealand’s next prime minister. </p>
<p>But as TVNZ’s post-debate analysts tended to agree, neither candidate will have changed many minds – or reversed the main political poll trends since mid-year.</p>
<p>The so-called “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168014547667">bandwagon effect</a>” describes how opinion polls can not only inform but sometimes influence electoral behaviour. Voters start aligning with whichever politician or party seems to be gaining support and momentum, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. </p>
<p>Based on recent polling, this might seem to favour the National Party. But the <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/13/1news-poll-nz-first-winston-peters-heading-back-to-parliament/">rise of New Zealand First</a> and Winston Peters, and the relative decline in support for the ACT Party, means there is still an <a href="https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/politics/350068149/election-2023-nationalact-pole-position-it-far-over">unpredictable element</a> to this election. </p>
<p>For Labour’s Chris Hipkins, it was important he not be perceived as a “dead man walking”. He probably managed that. But arguably, his situation remains more akin to someone attempting to thread a needle while running – a difficult and risky thing to do. </p>
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<h2>More than political theatre</h2>
<p>Attempts to analyse leadership often focus on personal attributes – such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984399000478">skills</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-15406-013">personality</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984311001202">character</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984316302351">decision-making</a> – and how these influence the results a leader achieves. </p>
<p>But what leadership researchers call “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Followership-Followers-Creating-Changing-Leadership/dp/1422103684">followership</a>” – in this case, voter attitudes, behaviours and expectations – matters greatly. So does the wider socioeconomic and cultural <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Differently-About-Leadership-Critical/dp/1784716782">context</a> in which a leader is operating. Weighing all these can help reveal how Hipkins is responding and performing as a political leader. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-combined-poll-trends-now-show-a-clear-rightward-shift-since-june-213536">NZ election 2023: combined poll trends now show a clear rightward shift since June</a>
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<p>In a nutshell, his core challenge is to navigate adverse conditions in ways that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-James-MacGregor-Burns-ebook/dp/B007MFECFU/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MA7PBNVEGOD3&keywords=James+Macgregor+Burns+Leadership&qid=1694996194&s=books&sprefix=james+macgregor+burns+leadership%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C301&sr=1-1">rise above</a> the mere theatrics of politics. He needs to connect with voter’s values and interests, not just their current mood.</p>
<p>If Hipkins can do that, and with at least <a href="https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/politics/350068072/labour-slumps-new-poll-low-numbers-offer-some-comfort">one recent poll</a> suggesting the election could deliver a hung parliament, he could secure Labour a chance of forming the next government. </p>
<h2>Authenticity and fallibility</h2>
<p>Hipkins is campaigning primarily on his and Labour’s claimed desire and ability to support the “ordinary Kiwi” – that traditional target of most political parties. His own background as the “<a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/chris-hipkins-from-hutt-valley-boy-to-quiet-coup-for-pm-audrey-young-reports/ET4JZSI5PVCKBDDHRCLYVQ3CHI/">boy from the Hutt</a>”, along with his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/world/asia/chris-hipkins-new-zealand.html">self-deprecating</a> and <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131484160/archpragmatist-chris-hipkins-is-dragging-labour-back-to-the-centre--and-the-left-into-election-contention">pragmatic, centrist instincts</a>, are important features of his appeal and credibility. </p>
<p>That pragmatism orients him to seek politically practical and achievable outcomes whatever the circumstances. The challenge, however, is to be both aspirational and positive while also not indulging <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263237310000277">unrealistic expectations</a>. </p>
<p>Research shows people are more likely to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916685">trust and support leaders</a> they see as being “one of us”, and who they believe are genuinely motivated to act “for us”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-election-christopher-luxons-real-test-could-come-from-his-right-not-the-left-209393">After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left</a>
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<p>To sustain that, leaders also need to show they can deliver. Hence the balance in Labour’s advertising between its <a href="https://www.labour.org.nz/our-priorities">priorities</a> for the coming term and its <a href="https://www.labour.org.nz/our-record">key achievements</a> in government. </p>
<p>Hipkins has also emphasised the importance he attaches to just being himself, acknowledging he’s not infallible. Describing the government’s COVID policies and some decisions that, with the benefit of hindsight, weren’t optimal, <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/hipkins-on-disagreeing-with-ardern-and-carving-his-own-path">he has said</a>:</p>
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<p>And that means you don’t get everything perfect, and there’s no point being defensive about it – you just have to own it.</p>
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<p>Good leaders, according to some research, are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984311002050">authentic and know their weaknesses</a>, but also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Developing-Leadership-Character/Crossan-Seijts-Gandz/p/book/9781138825673">possess the virtues</a> needed to exercise wise judgment. Overall, the more voters trust Hipkins as a “safe pair of hands”, the more likely he is to win their support.</p>
<h2>Crafting a persuasive narrative</h2>
<p>The flip side to Hipkins’ pragmatism is that by not being bolder with policy, he risks giving people too few reasons to vote for Labour. His “middle ground” approach gives more political oxygen to parties on the left and right offering more radical <a href="https://policy.nz/2023">change proposals</a>.</p>
<p>And while policies might be the focus of campaigns and debates, politics remains an emotional experience for many voters. The electoral mood becomes a significant factor. And, as <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/14/voters-are-grumpy-so-will-labour-go-negative/">one observer</a> put it recently, the electorate is unusually “grumpy”. </p>
<p>Hipkin’s therefore needs to persuade undecided voters – and previous Labour voters thinking of voting for another party – to <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674038479/html">reassess any negative feelings</a> they might have about Labour’s performance. He has to convince them their long-term material interests, rather than their current emotional state, will be better served by giving him their vote. </p>
<p>In a cost-of-living crisis, it’s tempting to look for someone to blame for life’s challenges. That is a gift to Labour’s opponents, keen to <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018904727/national-party-tax-plan-would-dish-out-between-dollar20-to-dollar250-per-fortnight">build a narrative</a> of political and economic incompetence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/taxing-questions-is-national-glossing-over-the-likely-cost-of-administering-its-new-revenue-measures-212529">Taxing questions: is National glossing over the likely cost of administering its new ‘revenue measures'?</a>
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<p>There is a counter-narrative, of course: <a href="https://data.oecd.org/price/inflation-forecast.htm">inflation</a> and <a href="https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-debt.htm">government debt</a> levels are both below the OECD average, New Zealand has had proportionally far <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths">fewer COVID deaths</a> than elsewhere, and the country’s <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/132905472/standard-and-poors-maintains-nzs-credit-rating-forecasts-just-02-gdp-growth">credit rating</a> remains solid. But facts and logic may hold little sway. </p>
<p>In leadership research, the attempt to create or control the narrative is called the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002188638201800303">management of meaning</a>”. Unless Hipkins discovers an effective way to do this, he will struggle. </p>
<p>This is a common problem for incumbent governments, campaigning on their record of managing real-world, complex problems. For opposition parties, it’s easier to present simple solutions and make bold promises, or what researchers of populism have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12802">bluntly called</a> “bullshit statements”. </p>
<p>Breaking through these barriers and appealing to voter’s actual interests over their emotions is no easy task. Chris Hipkins has just over three weeks to find a way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suze Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The election campaign’s first live TV debate offered a glimpse of the leadership challenge faced by Labour’s Chris Hipkins – to connect with voter’s values and interests, not just their current mood.Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836832022-06-21T14:13:54Z2022-06-21T14:13:54ZWant to run for office in Kenya? Here’s how much it’ll cost you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464816/original/file-20220523-12-mixc6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Candidates are always willing to outspend each other to boost their visibility during the campaigns amid fierce competition for the elective posts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-kenyan-presidential-candidate-raila-odinga-news-photo/826021938?adppopup=true">Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya’s constitution provides for election of the president and 47 governors to head the executive organs at national and county levels, respectively. Also to be elected are legislators: 47 senators, 290 MPs and 1,450 members of county assemblies. There is fierce competition for these posts, not just between parties but between individuals within a party; and the more a candidate spends, the higher the chances of winning a seat. Karuti Kanyinga is a governance and development expert. We asked him how much it costs to run for office, and what the high cost signals for Kenya’s participatory democracy.</em></p>
<h2>How much does it cost to win a legislative seat?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/SrIlWeBWMH.pdf">Election Campaigns Financing Act</a> recognises a number of campaign-related expenses that may arise, from party primaries to general elections. These include venue hiring, publicity material, advertising, campaign personnel and transportation. Candidates may also incur social costs, like contributing medical assistance and school fees to communities. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://nimd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WFD_NIMD_2021_The-cost-of-politics-in-Kenya-1.pdf">study</a> – based on discussions and interviews with key informants from across the country – estimates that a candidate will this year spend about 39 million Kenya shillings (roughly US$390,000) on average to win a senate seat in the 9 August polls. The amount does not include support that a candidate may get from the sponsoring political party. </p>
<p>It took an average of US$350,000 to win a similar seat in the 2017. The 12.3% cost difference between 2017 and 2022 is attributed to the increasing cost of living, and inflation in general. </p>
<p>Kenya has 47 counties, implying successful senators will spend a total of 1.8 billion shillings (US$18 million) to win their seats.</p>
<p>To successfully run for the Woman Representative seat, an aspirant needs US$240,000 this year – 4.8% higher than the US$228,000 that a successful candidate spent five years ago. Kenya’s parliament has 47 such representatives, implying total spending in excess of US$11 million by the successful candidates.</p>
<p>An MP will require an average of US$222,000 to win in the August polls, up from $182,000 in 2017. The parliament has 290 elected MPs, implying a collective US$64.4 million (KSh6.4 billion) to fill the seats.</p>
<p>The least expensive political seat in Kenya is that of Member of County Assembly, at US$31,000 this year, or a total of US$45 million (KSh4.5bn) for the 1,450 electable seats. </p>
<p>Candidates interviewed for this study said voters generally viewed them as moneybags every time they organised meetings in their constituencies. The demands for money increased in tandem with approaching elections.</p>
<p>For Ghana, which returned to multiparty elections in 1992 – the same year as Kenya – the <a href="https://www.wfd.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Cost_Of_Politics_Ghana.pdf">cost of election</a> increased by 59% between 2012 and 2016. But the US$85,000 that a candidate required to win a parliamentary seat in the 2016 general election was only 46.7% of what a Kenyan counterpart would spend a year later, in 2017, to clinch a similar seat.</p>
<p>Within East Africa, a 2020 <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348732689_PRE-CAMPAIGN_SPENDING_FOR_UGANDA_ELECTIONS_2021_Ballot_Paper_or_Bank_Note">study</a> in Uganda found that candidates spent between US$43,000 and US$143,000 to be elected to parliament in the 2016 general election. </p>
<h2>What drives these costs?</h2>
<p>The first driver is the allure of elective office. Kenya pays an MP a monthly package of at least US$10,000 – including basic allowances. <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/poverty/33EF03BB-9722-4AE2-ABC7-AA2972D68AFE/Global_POVEQ_KEN.pdf">Over 36%</a> of Kenya’s population live below the poverty line, earning less than US$1.9 per day or US$57 monthly.</p>
<p>The second driver is <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5766&context=masters_theses">patronage and connections</a>, that have also been linked to theft of public resources. Upon winning election, a patron-client network chain ensues that connects the politician to higher levels of the state and senior politicians to the grassroots. This enables the politician to draw development resources and also provides an opportunity for self-enrichment through contracts with public institutions. </p>
<p>Third, pressure from voters demanding handouts also drives up the cost of politics in Kenya. In many of the interviews, respondents pointed out that voters openly demand money from candidates before agreeing to attend their meetings. Voters demand payment because some of those elected rarely engage with voters after elections. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vote-buying-is-a-big-problem-in-kenya-how-to-curb-it-before-the-2022-elections-171630">Vote buying is a big problem in Kenya. How to curb it before the 2022 elections</a>
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<p>The fourth driver of cost has to do with wrong perceptions of roles. In the past, voters judged elected leaders on the basis of the development projects initiated or number of people helped to access government jobs. The current <a href="http://www.kenyalaw.org/lex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010">constitution</a> casts the roles of elected leaders as oversight of the executive; making laws; and representation of the people. But voters still demand the “development record” of aspiring MPs. To prove their worth, the aspirant is compelled to contribute to projects and assistance funds.</p>
<p>Fifth, some candidates are willing to outspend others during the primaries of dominant parties or coalitions in order to secure a ticket. Getting a ticket of dominant party reduces the chances of losing the election.</p>
<p>Lastly, there is limited oversight of election financing. The Election Campaign Financing Act restricts the sources of campaign funds but doesn’t place caps on them. Last year, MPs <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/national-assembly-rejects-iebc-cap-polls-spending-3508264">rejected</a> an attempt by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/iGNrE6ZL95.pdf">change</a> the law and introduce spending caps.</p>
<h2>What’s the impact of high costs?</h2>
<p>Capable candidates who lack access to sizeable resources get excluded from politics. Our study shows Woman Representative candidates who won their race spent almost three times as much as those who were unsuccessful. Similarly, victorious senators spent more than double what losers spent. In the race for National Assembly, successful candidates spent 50% more than those who did not win.</p>
<p>High costs have also led to a non-functioning representative democracy. Political seats mostly go to those who lead in contributions to development projects, donations to groups, and raising funds for individuals in need. The transactional nature of politics reduces opportunities for debate and dialogue between elected officials and their constituents.</p>
<p>Once the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281451951_MONETARY_CLOUT_AND_ELECTORAL_POLITICS_IN_KENYA_-_Presidential_Elections_in_Focus">heavy spenders</a> win elections, they turn to the executive and to the public sector institutions for contracts and rent-seeking opportunities. The use of an electoral seat as a source of patronage in the constituency is linked to national level patronage networks, which in turn is the basis for corruption in the public sector. These networks help to entrench abuse of office, especially because political actors have to continue amassing resources for their support bases. </p>
<p>High costs also lead politicians to neglect their functions. Re-election bids begin almost immediately after elections as leaders, without seeking opinions of their constituents, initiate “development projects” aimed at boosting their visibility at campaign time.</p>
<p>A final impact of money politics is that elected officials do not always provide effective oversight of the use of resources by the executive at the national and county level. This would be an exercise in futility, given that some intend to access those resources for personal or political gain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karuti Kanyinga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The transactional nature of politics reduces opportunities for debate and dialogue between elected officials and their constituents.Karuti Kanyinga, Research Professor, Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of NairobiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677752021-09-22T13:02:15Z2021-09-22T13:02:15ZGlobal voter turnout has been in decline since the 1960s – we wanted to find out why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420631/original/file-20210912-27-1mfmk1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4542%2C3148&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any democratic nation in the world holding a legislative or presidential election in the late 1960s could expect around 77% of its citizens to turn up to vote. These days, they can expect more like 67% – a decline that is both problematic and puzzling.</p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198825081.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198825081-e-20">shows</a> that low turnout is bad for democracy. It usually means that socioeconomically underprivileged citizens vote less and, as a result, public policies benefit the rich. Politicians feel less under public scrutiny and turn a deaf ear to the needs of the wider public. Instead of formulating general public policies serving society at large, governments can more easily target benefits to their core supporters. </p>
<p>And the decline has occurred against a backdrop that might be more likely to imply an increase in election participation. Educational attainment has increased since the 1960s, for example, and election results have become closer – which would be thought to mobilise electorates. </p>
<p><strong>Evolution of voter turnout in national elections 1945-2017</strong></p>
<p>Scholars and pundits have offered several hypotheses for the decline. Some think that political dissatisfaction has increased and keeps people away. Others cite economic globalisation, suggesting that if national governments hold less power, the stakes of their national elections are lower and people won’t see the point in taking part. We tested all of these hypotheses in the most extensive cross-national <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/generational-and-institutional-sources-of-the-global-decline-in-voter-turnout/B9EB23098C2A905FECA7072C384CD34F">study</a> of voter turnout to date, drawing on 1,421 national elections, and 314,071 individual observations from high-quality post-electoral surveys.</p>
<h2>Generational shift</h2>
<p>Our statistical analysis did not find support for many of the popular explanations. Instead, we identified two main causes. The first is a generational change resulting from economic development. People born into more affluent societies develop values that are less conducive to participation. Once countries reach a certain level of economic wealth, new generations become less <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2ttz44">deferential</a> to authorities and less likely to conceptualise voting as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414012453032">a civic duty</a>. They go to the polls less often than their older counterparts, who were socialised in earlier stages of economic development. The mechanical process of generational replacement, whereby new generations’ share in the electorate grows as older generations pass away, accounts for 56% of the voter decline. </p>
<p>The other main cause, responsible for 21% of the decline, is the rise in the number of elective institutions. When elections are more frequent, voter fatigue sets in and people’s interest in taking part slides. In Europe, the number of elective institutions increased by 34% since the 1960s. This was driven by European integration, state decentralisation, the frequent use of direct democracy, and institutional reforms such as the introduction of directly elected presidents. If voters are asked to vote nearly twice a year, like in <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/06/15/plus-d-elections-equivaut-a-moins-de-participation_5145085_3232.html">France</a>, some of them will get fed up and not bother. </p>
<h2>Further to fall?</h2>
<p>The generational nature of the problem suggests that turnout may continue to drop. But this isn’t inevitable. While new generations vote on average less than older generations, they do mobilise in particularly polarised contexts where a lot seems at stake. For example, the most recent presidential election in the United States in November 2020, in which the controversial incumbent Donald Trump sought re-election, yielded the <a href="http://www.electproject.org/">highest voter turnout</a> in the US for 120 years.</p>
<p>The rising salience of cultural and environmental issues, which new generations <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/">care deeply about</a>, could likewise offset some of the generational declines in turnout. </p>
<p>Public authorities can also help by reducing the number of times citizens are called to the voting booth. This can be achieved without reducing citizens’ rights by reorganising election calendars and combining different election types on the same day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Across the world, people have become less likely to take part in elections in recent decades.Filip Kostelka, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Government, University of EssexAndré Blais, Full Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1622932021-07-28T13:25:24Z2021-07-28T13:25:24ZWhat to expect from post-pandemic voting behaviour<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413307/original/file-20210727-15-1rc894m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5601%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it an abundance of emotion relating to threat, loss, uncertainty and anxiety. These emotions heavily affect the ways in which we make decisions. It’s <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections">widely recognised</a> that emotions such as fear, threat and anxiety even influence the way we vote. </p>
<p>The pandemic served as a reminder of human fragility and the inescapability of death. These psychological forces will inevitably influence our behaviour. That could include our decisions at the ballot box. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, researchers developed the concept of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10">terror management theory</a> in the field of social psychology. Their work observes two notions – the first is that humans have biological response systems to deal with impending threats (fight or flight). The second is that humans have the cognitive ability to understand death.</p>
<p>With this knowledge, humans must manage the presence of intense anxiety (or even terror) by sustaining faith or belief in a view of the world that provides emotional security and fulfilment. Much of religion and cultural worldview functions as this – containing our fears and anxiety surrounding mortality. <a href="https://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.160/Psychologie/Sozialpsychologie/19_Greenberg_Arndt_Terror_Management_Theory.pdf">Further research</a> has shown that similar forces are at work in our personal politics.</p>
<p>The foundation of people’s sense of security may shift to political sources. Public figures such as presidents and politicians – or even the nation itself – may come to serve as anxiety buffers.</p>
<h2>Channelling our anxieties</h2>
<p>It has been shown that reminders of mortality draw people toward charismatic leaders who sell simple visions, most commonly involving a “good” in-group and an “evil” out-group. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167204267988">In a 2004 study</a>, for example, support for George W Bush and his severe counter-terrorism policies increased among participants who had been shown stimuli reminding them of their own mortality and reminding them of 9/11. The researchers concluded that he was providing a sense of symbolic protection in his patriotic rhetoric and the way he identified an evil out-group after the tragedy.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230592346_1">Further work</a> has shown that politicians and the state play a significant role in managing public anxiety in times of uncertainty – something referred to as “emotional governance”.</p>
<p>Institutions such as the National Health Service, for example, can do more than just provide medical care in the most literal sense. They also play a role in our emotional security. That much has been seen during the pandemic, when expressing support and gratitude for healthcare workers has become such an important part of our culture. </p>
<p>The importance and vulnerability of the NHS was so often at the forefront of our minds during the pandemic. In the near future we might therefore be particularly susceptible to promises from politicians about boosting pay for nurses, for example. We may be more impressionable to themes of patriotism, channelling our pride in the national institution that is the NHS into the nation itself. Strong feelings of attachment to the the nation can offer reassurance and clarity following a public scare. Patriotism may also offer a cause to hold on to amid the recovery from the pandemic. </p>
<h2>Vaccine polarisation</h2>
<p>After the pandemic, voters may also find themselves further polarised as the <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2020/08/06/forget-about-masks-the-real-covid-culture-war-has-only-just-begun/">culture war</a> continues to divide people according to their views on certain social issues. Over the past year, that has included attitudes towards vaccines and lockdown rules. </p>
<p>Feelings towards vaccines were already entangled in politics before the pandemic. A study in 2018 <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5784985/">found that</a> conservative respondents in the US were less likely to express pro-vaccination beliefs. In April 2021, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250123">research found</a> that Republicans were more likely to oppose the COVID-19 vaccination than Democrats. Research in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8135852/">Austria</a> has found that non-voters had higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.</p>
<p>Vaccination hesitancy points to larger trends of distrust in institutions and political apathy. – issues that were live before the pandemic but have found new outlets. We may therefore expect to see pandemic themes providing fresh opportunities for anti-establishment politicians. </p>
<p>When faced with threat <a href="https://jonathansklar.uk/dark-times/">in times</a> of fear and uncertainty, it’s common for humans to elicit simplified worldviews. We seek out binary choices to deal with the complexities that come with crises because it feels safer to do so.</p>
<p>If the government has failed to provide us with a sense of security in the past, we will seek it elsewhere. The prevalence of conspiracy theories during the pandemic has shown us that we are particularly susceptible to simplified alternative narratives in times of difficulty. </p>
<p>We may expect politicians to capitalise on the the pandemic, calling for tighter restrictions on borders for disease control, or even cite lockdown restrictions as an impediment on personal and <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/COVID-19_Special_Report_Final_.pdf">civic</a> freedoms. The potential of this has been demonstrated with the popularity of the anti-lockdown movement, which has acted as a tie between “<a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/07/03/the-anti-lockdown-movement-is-still-going-strong">the anarchist-left and the anti-establishment right</a>”.</p>
<p>Fear may come to be a powerful factor in post-pandemic elections, particularly if politicians take advantage of anxieties surrounding future pandemics and the traumatic experiences of COVID-19. Voters may enact defence mechanisms and this may ultimately sway their opinions.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some voters may also seek leaders who offer reassurance and elicit trust – people who highlight a collective purpose for the common good and wellbeing of society, reminding us of the more cooperative moments in the pandemic. This would be an alternative path that might mitigate some of the more harmful forms of terror management we are likely to see in post-pandemic politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tabitha A. Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows shared traumas drive political preferences in certain directions.Tabitha A. Baker, PhD Candidate, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483302020-10-20T09:47:40Z2020-10-20T09:47:40ZThe 2020 NZ election saw record vote volatility — what does that mean for the next Labour government?<p>As the dust begins to settle after the 2020 election, a new electoral landscape becomes visible. It is remarkably different from the one before.</p>
<p>One way to put this in perspective is by measuring what we call “vote volatility” — the net vote shift between parties from one election to the next. By this calculation the 2020 election has ended a period of relative stability. </p>
<p>More significantly, unless reduced after the final count, the net vote shift will be the biggest in over a century. </p>
<p>The challenge will be for Labour to capitalise on this landmark in New Zealand electoral history — before the wheel inevitably turns again.</p>
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<h2>The first Labour landslide</h2>
<p>Vote volatility is calculated by adding the absolute changes in parties’ vote shares between elections, then dividing the sum by two. A score of 0 would mean parties all received the same vote shares as before. A score of 100 would mean a complete replacement of one set of parties by another.</p>
<p>Over the past century, New Zealand has had four elections in which net vote shifts have been well above the norm: 1919, 1935, 2005 and now 2020. </p>
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<p>In 1919, the Labour Party broke through into the city electorates and destroyed an embryonic two-party system that had pitched the Reform Party against the Liberal Party at the 1911 and 1914 elections. This turned elections into three-way races, with Labour winning mostly major urban seats, the Liberals doing better in the provincial towns and cities, and Reform in the countryside. </p>
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<p>In 1935, in a massive electoral landslide, Michael Joseph Savage’s Labour advanced further, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/labour-party/page-2">forming</a> its first government. Three conservative parties merged to form the National Party, ushering in New Zealand’s second two-party system. </p>
<p>That lasted much longer, but began to decay as early as the 1950s. At the 1984 election, net vote shifts were higher than at any election since 1938. However, the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/electoral-systems/page-3">first-past-the-post</a> system had prevented the emergence of a multi-party system from the 1970s onwards.</p>
<h2>An end to vote stability</h2>
<p>An upward vote volatility trend, beginning as long ago as the 1960s, continued after the introduction of MMP. Through the 1996, 1999 and 2002 elections, it reached a peak in 2005. After that, votes moved back in the direction of Labour and National. </p>
<p>As the pattern seemed to persist it led some observers to wonder whether the multi-party politics promised by MMP was a “mirage”. </p>
<p>ACT became a one-seat party, its Epsom electorate strategically gifted from National. New Zealand First dropped out of parliament in 2008, but returned in 2011. Only the Green Party prospered from one election to the next, eating into Labour’s vote share as the party languished in opposition during the John Key years. </p>
<p>Despite the change of government in 2008, vote shifts were modest, a pattern repeated in 2011. Indeed, in 2014 net vote shifts were the second lowest of any election over the previous century, only slightly higher than those of the “no change” election of 1963. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-mandate-to-govern-new-zealand-alone-labour-must-now-decide-what-it-really-stands-for-144490">With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for</a>
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<p>In 2017, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour took office, <a href="https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2017/new-zealand-2017-general-election-official-results/">reflecting</a> a real shift to the left, but relying on New Zealand First’s coalition choice more than the movement of votes (which was not enough for a left majority). It seemed party politics under MMP had stabilised after a brief period of experimentation that ended after the 2005 election.</p>
<p>The 2020 election breaks the mould. If the pattern holds after the counting of special votes, it will surpass even 1935, New Zealand’s hitherto most dramatic realigning election. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2020/preliminary-results-for-the-2020-general-election/">turnout was up</a>, another indicator of a big change. This was despite a widely predicted Labour win and a big margin between Labour and National in pre-election polls — expectation of a decisive result usually pulls turnout down. </p>
<h2>The challenge to create a legacy</h2>
<p>One might dismiss this as a one-off. COVID-19 and the government response created a perfect storm. When the crisis is over, things will return to normal. </p>
<p>But one could have said the same thing in 1935. The depression of the 1930s gave Labour the chance to win. Even if the economic recovery that followed was only partly an effect of Labour policy, the party reaped the rewards in 1938. </p>
<p>Like Michael Joseph Savage before her, Jacinda Ardern has demonstrated the leadership demanded by the times. But there is a difference. Labour in 1935 came to power with a big promise of a welfare state. Labour in 2020 has made no big promises, although many smaller ones. It faces huge challenges, arguably much more demanding than those of the 1930s. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-and-labour-returned-in-a-landslide-5-experts-on-a-historic-new-zealand-election-148245">Jacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election</a>
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<p>COVID-19 and a sustainable economic recovery will be the first priorities. Climate change, increased international tension, trade wars, internal cultural diversity and working through ongoing responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi — all of these will test the mettle of the Ardern government.</p>
<p>The 2020 election tells us the New Zealand party system is more prone to big shifts than expected after 2005. Periods of apparent two-party dominance may be temporary. Both Labour and National are prone to rise and fall, creating space for smaller parties to step into the gaps as they open, and fall back as they close. </p>
<p>The catalysts of change may be big external shocks or internal challenges. All else being equal, the 2020 election is likely to herald a period of Labour dominance, but eventually the tide will turn. Labour’s biggest challenge will be to establish a lasting policy legacy before that happens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of the New Zealand Election Study, Jack Vowles receives funding from Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Electoral Commission.</span></em></p>If the pattern on election night holds, 2020 will be the most dramatic election in 100 years in terms of votes shifting between major parties.Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482452020-10-17T12:18:27Z2020-10-17T12:18:27ZJacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364050/original/file-20201017-23-9df57a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3982%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pre-election polls suggested it might happen. But the fact that Labour and Jacinda Ardern have provisionally won an outright majority and the mandate to govern New Zealand alone is more than an electoral landslide — it is a tectonic shift. </p>
<p>You can see the full results and compare them with the 2017 election <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-at-a-glance-graphs-and-tables-147757">here</a>.</p>
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<p>This is also not a result the mixed member proportional (<a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>) voting system was <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-polls-showing-labour-could-govern-alone-is-new-zealand-returning-to-the-days-of-elected-dictatorship-146918">designed to deliver</a>. The challenge for Ardern and Labour now will be to translate that mandate — and the fact that their natural coalition partner the Greens have performed strongly too — into the “transformational” agenda promised since 2017.</p>
<p>For now, there is much to digest in the sheer scale of the swing against National and the likely shape of the next parliament. Our panel of political analysts deliver their initial responses and predictions.</p>
<h2>Labour rewarded for its COVID response</h2>
<p><strong>Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington</strong></p>
<p>It’s an historic MMP result, and that is down to one thing: COVID-19. Labour and Ardern made the right calls. Comparative analysis of COVID responses internationally shows it’s not just a matter of what you do, it’s a matter of whether you do it soon enough. Labour did that and have been rewarded electorally.</p>
<p>The polls were largely in line with what looks like the final result will be — the Greens have done a bit better, as has Labour, and National appreciably worse. It’s unlikely they can claw that back to where earlier polls had them. Special votes will be roughly 15% of the total and they are likely to go more in Labour’s and the Green’s direction, as they did in 2017.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-why-gender-stereotypes-still-affect-perceptions-of-jacinda-ardern-and-judith-collins-as-leaders-147837">NZ election 2020: why gender stereotypes still affect perceptions of Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins as leaders</a>
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<p>The swing away from National is pretty dramatic. If it is indeed the first single party majority under MMP it’s very unlikely to happen again for a long time. The big question is whether Labour wants to do a deal with the Greens when they don’t have to. </p>
<p>It might be in their interests to do so in the long run — in 2023 Labour probably won’t be in such a strong position. If they have a good relationship with the Greens it might stand them in better stead, but it’s a tough strategic call.</p>
<p>As for New Zealand First, according to analysis of the Reid Research polls over the past months, most of their vote has gone to Labour. And that is simply another reflection of this being a COVID election. Labour was rewarded for protecting New Zealanders, particularly the most vulnerable — and that is in the traditions of the Labour Party.</p>
<h2>Labour win masks smaller victories</h2>
<p><strong>Bronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of Canterbury</strong></p>
<p>With a record 1.9 million people casting an early vote, this was always going to be an election with a difference. Younger voters also enrolled in historic numbers, with a significant increase in those aged 18 to 29 enrolling across the country. A generation’s hopes and aspirations now hang in the balance. </p>
<p>Labour’s victory offers the party command of the house, an unprecedented situation in an MMP government. But it masks some other remarkable achievements. The Māori Party’s fortunes have risen, with very little national media coverage. </p>
<p>ACT has been transformed from a tiny grouping of 13,075 party votes in 2017 to win an astonishing 185,723 party votes this year. </p>
<p>The Greens defied a dominant mantra that small parties who enter governance arrangements are eclipsed in the next election. They maintained their distinctive brand and should bring ten MPs into the House. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-jacinda-ardern-promised-transformation-instead-the-times-transformed-her-142900">NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300135281/election-2020-greens-chle-swarbrick-takes-auckland-central-in-shock-win">epic struggle</a> for Auckland Central by Chlöe Swarbrick (Green) and Helen White (Labour) has pushed up both the Green and the Labour vote — a microcosm of the wider shift to a progressive left electorate bloc. </p>
<p>The challenge now is for Labour to decide to open this victory to support parties. What happens next matters as much as the election itself. Will a Labour government led by the most popular prime minister in New Zealand’s history be incrementalist or transformative in tackling the biggest challenges any government has faced in peacetime?</p>
<h2>The Māori Party returns</h2>
<p><strong>Lindsey Te Ata o Tau MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Canterbury</strong></p>
<p>Tonight demonstrates that Māori voters continue to waver between the Māori Party via its electorate MPs and Labour via the party vote. </p>
<p>On one side there is the legacy of Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples, and the founding generation of “by Māori, for Māori, with Māori” in the post-settlement era. Rawiri Waititi, who may well take Tamiti Coffey’s seat in Waiariki, is the living embodiment of the success of that struggle. </p>
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<p>The other side is exemplified by Koro Wetere’s triumph in 1975 in creating the Waitangi Tribunal. These two stories — struggle via protest and gradual legislative change — were deeply intertwined in Labour’s grip on the Māori seats until 2003. Then, in one grand racist gesture, Labour proved itself a colonial government by taking the last Māori land, the foreshore and seabed, by statute. </p>
<p>Māori voters have not forgotten the deep betrayal of that removal of their property rights. Hence the close races tonight for those who truly inherit the mantle of the Māori party’s founders, such as Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. </p>
<p>John Tamihere’s close run in Tāmaki Makaurau is more just politics, Auckland style, as usual. He may be wondering why he didn’t go with ACT, which has brought in interesting new Māori talent.</p>
<h2>What happened to the ‘shy Tories’?</h2>
<p><strong>Jennifer Curtin, Professor of Politics and Policy, University of Auckland</strong></p>
<p>Two aspects are interesting in this post-MMP history-making election. The first is that Labour has made significant gains in the regions. It is now not solely a party of the cities — it looks to have claimed seats that have long been forgotten as bellwethers (Hamilton East and West), as well as those provincial hubs in Taranaki, Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Northland. </p>
<p>This suggests that while New Zealand First had been gifted the Provincial Growth Fund to deliver regional economic growth to the regions, it was Labour that reaped the rewards of this largesse. </p>
<p>While COVID-19 is definitely part of the reason for Labour’s success, the support is likely to have come from across the political spectrum, bringing its own challenges.</p>
<p>This leads into the second interesting point. Judith Collins reportedly did not share internal polling with her caucus, but public polls suggested National support was in the 30% region. Collins argued the result would be higher, that there were shy Tories who would turn out for National. </p>
<p>In fact, this result suggests it was “shy lefties” the polls had failed to capture. And it appears undecided voters decided National was not for them this time.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-as-the-ultimate-political-survivor-judith-collins-prepares-for-her-ultimate-test-144488">NZ election 2020: as the ultimate political survivor, Judith Collins prepares for her ultimate test</a>
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<h2>With such a mandate, Ardern must deliver</h2>
<p><strong>Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University</strong></p>
<p>The Prime Minister asked for a mandate and she got it. Final numbers won’t be known for a couple of weeks, but the headline result was one last seen in New Zealand in 1993: a political party in possession of a clear parliamentary majority.</p>
<p>All the same, Jacinda Ardern will be chatting with Green Party leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw (and perhaps the Māori Party, depending on events in Waiariki) about how Labour and the Greens might work together in the 53rd Parliament. Perhaps a formal coalition, but more likely a compact of some sort. </p>
<p>She doesn’t need the Greens to govern and their leverage is limited. But a lot of people who voted for Labour would not have done so under other circumstances (no Ardern, no COVID). At some point they will return home to National. Labour will already be thinking about 2023 and Ardern knows she will need parliamentary friends in the future.</p>
<p>But right now Ardern has a chance to consign the centre-right to the opposition benches for the next couple of electoral cycles. There is a chasm between the combined Labour/Green vote (57%) and National/ACT (35%). ACT had a good night but the centre-right had a shocker. National now has a real problem with rejuvenation. With a low party vote, and having lost so many electorates, their ranks will look old and threadbare in 2023.</p>
<p>This election is tectonic. Ardern has led Labour to its biggest victory since Norman Kirk, and enters the Labour pantheon with Savage, Lange and Clark. Once special votes are counted, Labour could be the first party since 1951 to win a clear majority of the popular vote. </p>
<p>It has won in the towns and in the country. It won the party vote in virtually every single electorate. Labour candidates, many of them women (look for a large influx of new women MPs), have won seats long held by National. </p>
<p>Tonight Labour is looking like the natural party of government in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ardern has her mandate — now she needs to deliver.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jacinda Ardern and Labour are returned to power in a landslide, making New Zealand political history in the process.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityBronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of CanterburyJack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonJennifer Curtin, Professor of Politics and Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLindsey Te Ata o Tu MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1478372020-10-14T19:11:48Z2020-10-14T19:11:48ZNZ election 2020: why gender stereotypes still affect perceptions of Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins as leaders<p>Women leading both of New Zealand’s largest political parties is something to celebrate. Watching Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins go head to head in three televised or online pre-election debates should surely dispel any doubt about whether women are up to the demands of leadership at the highest level. </p>
<p>As tonight’s <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/tvnzs-your-vote-2020-coverage-debates-polls-and-election-specials">final debate</a> will also surely demonstrate, both women are confident, assertive and resilient under pressure, attributes widely expected of leaders. And yet gender bias continues to define aspects of their careers and performance.</p>
<p>While the format has offered limited in-depth policy discussion, the debates have been a far cry from the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-biden-debate-a-locker-room-brawl-in-the-midst-of-covid-19-crisis-147329">gladiatorial masculinity</a>” displayed by Donald Trump in the recent US presidential debate with Joe Biden. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, subtle but still influential gendered dynamics are at play in the New Zealand election campaign. Ardern and Collins navigate these dynamics in quite distinctive ways, which may help explain why they each <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/jacinda-ardern-twice-likely-evoke-feelings-hope-than-judith-collins-among-adults-survey">evoke such different emotions</a> in voters. But how do people form these opinions?</p>
<p>Even without formal study, everyone develops their own ideas about what good leadership involves. Researchers call these ideas “<a href="http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/industrial-organizational-psychology/leadership-and-management/implicit-theory-of-leadership/">implicit leadership theories</a>”, and they shape how leaders are perceived. </p>
<p>While these personal theories <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1056492610375989">might not be correct</a> — in the sense that someone might value leader behaviours that research shows are actually ineffective or harmful — they are nonetheless influential.</p>
<h2>What makes an effective leader?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984317304988">Research</a> on these implicit theories shows that behaviours traditionally associated with masculinity are more likely to be seen as leader-like: this means when some people think “leader” their default is also to think “male”. </p>
<p>This results in people expecting leaders to be “strong” in the sense of being “tough” and “commanding”, attributes associated with traditional expectations of men. Similarly, being intimidating, power-hungry, risk-taking, demanding and domineering are often qualities people link to leadership. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-jacinda-ardern-promised-transformation-instead-the-times-transformed-her-142900">NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her</a>
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<p>However, a significant body of research suggests these behaviours are not, in fact, the <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/08/why-do-so-many-incompetent-men">key qualities</a> that make for effective leaders. Rather, they tend to undermine innovation, inhibit quality decision making and fail to draw out the best from people. Instead, humility, collaboration, team building and inspiring people to work for a common good are more important. These are also qualities women often exhibit.</p>
<p>But because they are judged against an <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12445">implicitly masculine norm</a>, women continue to find it harder to attain leadership roles, and to then succeed in those roles.</p>
<h2>Playing to others’ expectations</h2>
<p>Given all this, it is not surprising that Judith Collins often adopts an <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122852234/election-2020-this-is-nonsense--judith-collins-on-the-attack-in-first-leaders-debate-as-her-campaign-comes-under-pressure?rm=a">overtly combative, masculine style</a> to appeal principally to a more traditionally-minded voter base. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/judith-collins-new-zealands-anti-ardern-whose-hero-is-thatcher">clear echoes</a> of the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — the so-called Iron Lady — in Collins’s approach. She <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8614219/Judith-Collins-brands-New-Zealand-PM-Jacinda-Ardern-totally-useless.html">presents</a> herself as a potential prime minister who would be tough, in command, in control, brooking neither dissent nor failure. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-as-the-ultimate-political-survivor-judith-collins-prepares-for-her-ultimate-test-144488">NZ election 2020: as the ultimate political survivor, Judith Collins prepares for her ultimate test</a>
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<p>The reality of gendered leadership expectations means that to do otherwise would risk Collins not being seen as leader-like by those whose implicit leadership theories favour such traditionally masculine notions.</p>
<p>But this is not a guaranteed winning strategy by any means. As British leadership scholar Keith Grint <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237310000277">argues</a>, it’s generally unwise for leaders to proclaim complex problems can be solved by way of simple solutions. </p>
<h2>Strong vs nice</h2>
<p>Collins is also caught by what researchers call the “<a href="https://women.govt.nz/inspiring-action-for-gender-balance/double-bind-dilemma-women-leadership-damned-if-you-do-doomed-if">double bind</a>” that affects women leaders. If they display traditionally feminine behaviours, focussing on relationships and concern for others, they risk being seen as a good woman but not an effective leader. If they display masculine behaviours they risk being seen as a competent leader but a “not nice” woman. </p>
<p>The more Collins plays to traditional expectations of a combative, masculine style of leadership, therefore, the more she risks alienating people — including within her own voter base.</p>
<p>Ardern is equally at risk of the double bind but in the opposite way. Her emphasis on being kind and showing concern for others means she is seen by some as a nice woman but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/15/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-election-vote-disillusioned">not an effective leader</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/contrasting-styles-some-substance-5-experts-on-the-first-tv-leaders-debate-of-nzs-election-146670">Contrasting styles, some substance: 5 experts on the first TV leaders' debate of NZ's election</a>
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<h2>Soft skills, tough challenges</h2>
<p>However, “sensitivity” — meaning to be caring, sympathetic, compassionate, kind, empathetic, selfless and friendly — <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984317304988">also features</a> in implicit leadership theories. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yEZJAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=interpersonal+skills+for+leadership&ots=Jalv6ZTjS9&sig=x0WkR9ty2SWvZ_DeiobZtZ6Pfsk#v=onepage&q=interpersonal%20skills%20for%20leadership&f=false">evidence to suggest</a> that these so-called “soft skills” are, in fact, key to effective leadership. So, while Ardern’s style risks lacking credibility with those who cleave to more traditional, masculine views of leadership, this does not mean she is an ineffective leader.</p>
<p>In a political contest between two very determined, confident and resilient women, it should be remembered that some voters will inevitably be influenced by gendered preconceptions of what makes a good leader — and that this is just one more challenge such female leaders face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suze Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As they prepare for the final TV leaders’ debate, Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins share the same challenge: overcoming voter perceptions based on masculine definitions of leadership.Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Executive Development, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1450082020-08-25T20:05:32Z2020-08-25T20:05:32ZLowering New Zealand’s voting age to 16 would be good for young people – and good for democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354499/original/file-20200825-14-1u4w6aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2982%2C1917&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent decision to <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12357017">delay</a> the 2020 general election has given <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122471241/about-5000-young-people-now-eligible-to-vote-after-delay-to-2020-election">thousands</a> more New Zealand citizens the opportunity to vote for the first time.</p>
<p>But while it’s wonderful for those who turn 18 between the original election date and the new one, it does shine a spotlight on an ongoing source of inequality among New Zealand citizens: the <a href="https://vote.nz/enrolling/get-ready-to-enrol/are-you-eligible-to-enrol-and-vote/?">voting age</a> of 18 itself.</p>
<p>If these young people are capable of voting on October 17, they were probably capable of voting on September 19. Those four weeks are not going to be the difference between making reasoned or random choices when casting a vote.</p>
<p>The current system disadvantages an already vulnerable and powerless group – the young. Lowering the voting age would address this. And we could start by <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424324/teens-ask-court-to-lower-voting-age-to-16">listening</a> to the young Kiwis who have taken their age discrimination campaign, <a href="https://makeit16.org.nz/">Make it 16</a>, to the High Court.</p>
<p>It’s important to recognise the voting age limit of 18 for what it is – a procedural decision: 18 is a convenient number that happens to coincide with some (but not all) other age limits for the granting of rights in our society.</p>
<p>Procedural decisions aren’t necessarily bad. It might, for example, make sense to limit the ability to gain a <a href="https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/factsheets/45/docs/45-learning-to-drive.pdf">driver’s licence</a> to those 16 years of age or older. </p>
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<p>This isn’t to claim that no-one under 16 could ever be capable of driving. Rather, the age limit of 16 is a reasonable imposition on an activity and can be justified by appeal to the development of certain capacities.</p>
<h2>Age limits are arbitrary</h2>
<p>But voting isn’t like driving. Political participation – of which voting is the prime example – is a human right, and protected as such. Driving is not. So the standard for justifying not letting someone vote is and should be higher than the standard of justification for not letting someone drive.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/populism-from-the-brexit-and-trump-playbooks-enters-the-new-zealand-election-campaign-but-its-a-risky-strategy-144855">Populism from the Brexit and Trump playbooks enters the New Zealand election campaign – but it's a risky strategy</a>
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<p>Why then don’t we let people vote until they are 18?</p>
<p>Some might say younger citizens aren’t capable of voting well and so shouldn’t be entitled to. Maybe under-18s don’t pay enough attention to political news, or maybe they just can’t make political decisions.</p>
<p>This line of reasoning runs into multiple problems. If we really care about people being capable of voting well, then an age limit of 18 doesn’t provide sufficient guidance. Young people don’t receive powers of political reasoning as a magical 18th-birthday gift. In reality, they develop the skills over time and 18 is merely when we recognise them. </p>
<p>So, even if it’s true that some people can’t vote well and therefore shouldn’t vote at all, this line of reasoning begs the question about the voting age. It assumes, wrongly, that 18 is a good place to draw the line.</p>
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<p>That isn’t the only problem. We should and do allow those with severe cognitive disabilities to vote once they are 18, despite many of these people having demonstrably less capacity for political decision-making than teenagers. If capacity to vote matters, it matters for everyone, not just for young people.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-covid-19-crisis-tests-oppositions-as-well-as-governments-ahead-of-new-zealands-election-national-risks-failing-that-test-144415">The COVID-19 crisis tests oppositions as well as governments. Ahead of New Zealand's election, National risks failing that test</a>
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<h2>Voter turnout could improve</h2>
<p>Others may argue that turnout among young voters is low compared to voters in general. They are right – but so what? It isn’t clear to me that participation rates are the most important metric here. But even if we think they are, there is no reason to believe that letting younger citizens vote will cause overall rates to drop.</p>
<p>On the contrary, there is reason to think the opposite. <a href="http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_en/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_es/zonas_es/europa/ari88-2018-schmidt-edthofer-voting-16-austria-possible-model-eu">Evidence</a> from Austria, which lowered the voting age to 16 for its 2008 elections, suggests that enfranchising very young voters improves their participation rates.</p>
<p>Importantly for the long-term health of our democracy, once very young voters have voted, they are more likely to continue voting than those who couldn’t until they were 18.</p>
<p>Lowering the voting age may, in fact, benefit turnout. Voting is a habit which, once formed, is harder to break. If 16-year-olds have the desire but not the opportunity to vote, by the time they can, some percentage of them has become disengaged.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voting-is-an-essential-service-too-new-zealand-cant-be-afraid-to-go-to-the-polls-even-in-lockdown-144349">Voting is an essential service too. New Zealand can't be afraid to go to the polls, even in lockdown</a>
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<h2>Voting young builds the habit</h2>
<p>By contrast, if the development of the desire to vote coincides with the ability, they are more likely to act on that desire in the moment – and to continue voting in future.</p>
<p>This also helps dissolve a further objection, that young people aren’t interested in politics and so are less likely to make good choices. </p>
<p>A legitimate reason for young people not to care about politics is that they can’t participate in the first place. Being able to vote is an incentive for younger people to learn about politics in ways they otherwise might not.</p>
<p>So spare a thought for those who will turn 18 just after October 17, who miss out simply because of when the election falls. We can and should do better – by recognising this inequity and working to change the voting age for 2023.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Munn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Changing the voting age from 18 would allow more young citizens to make voting a habit before they lose interest in politics.Nick Munn, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1319532020-02-19T14:54:04Z2020-02-19T14:54:04ZAre voters prejudiced against ethnic minority candidates? We asked and the results were telling<p>Many people now accept that governments and parliaments should try to reflect the diversity of the people they seek to represent. But, in a democracy, voters play a role too. If they don’t support ethnic minority candidates and women, representation can’t happen. </p>
<p>So it’s important to find out whether some of the people who actually put a tick on the ballot paper are doing so with prejudice. When elections are competitive, even a small percentage of biased voters can make the difference – or can dissuade party gate-keepers from allowing women and minority candidates to stand for election at all.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-020-09596-4">investigated this issue</a> using an experiment in which we randomly changed various things about hypothetical candidates – such as their ethnicity, policies and gender – and measured how that affected whether British people said they would vote for them or not.</p>
<p>We found that Pakistani candidates received fewer (hypothetical) votes purely on account of their ethnicity – about six percentage points behind a white British candidate with otherwise identical characteristics and issue positions.</p>
<p>The hypothetical black Caribbean candidates received a more mixed response. Some voters were more inclined to support these candidates over a white British candidate. These were voters who were more positive about immigration and believed strongly in not acting in a prejudiced way.</p>
<p>However, other voters are disinclined to support a black Caribbean candidate. We found that a black Caribbean candidate would receive on average three points fewer than a white British candidate among people intending to vote Conservative in the 2017 general election.</p>
<p>In contrast, people intending to vote Labour did not distinguish between black Caribbean or white British candidates. That said, they were still four percentage points less likely to vote for a Pakistani candidate than either a black Caribbean or white British candidate.</p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, however, we didn’t find that women candidates faced a particular penalty – even if they were from an ethnic minority. This suggests that any difficulty women face in becoming an MP isn’t at the ballot box, but somewhere else – perhaps from the people choosing who is a candidate, or social media trolls.</p>
<h2>Prejudice or policy preference?</h2>
<p>These preferences may go beyond straightforward prejudices. The policies the candidates were putting forward seemed to matter more, at least when it came to matters of immigration and racism.</p>
<p>A candidate who said that the UK should accept more refugees into the country, for example, received 14 points fewer than a candidate who stood on a platform of promoting a policy of allowing high-skilled immigration in shortage sectors. It’s worth noting here that this option, while suggesting restrictions on immigration, was not the most restrictive policy on offer by our hypothetical candidates. Candidates described as supporting “strongly limiting migration” offered a more restrictive choice, which turned out to be less popular among our voters.</p>
<p>Voters also preferred candidates who wanted to enforce laws to tackle antisocial behaviour to those who would prioritise racial equality laws.</p>
<p>However, ethnic minority candidates took a greater hit for expressing pro-minority and pro-migration positions than their white counterparts. Supporting racial equality laws (instead of antisocial behaviour laws) cost white candidates only four points but Pakistani candidates seven points and black Caribbean candidates eight.</p>
<h2>Turned off by diversity efforts</h2>
<p>Parties have taken various approaches to increasing the diversity of MPs over the years. There have been all-women shortlists, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/apr/19/uk.conservatives">lists of preferred candidates</a> and mentoring schemes. But we found that voters didn’t seem to like it when candidates made their way onto the ballot via such schemes. </p>
<p>We described some candidates as having been “included on a list from underrepresented backgrounds” and others as people who “just got involved in their party” rather than benefiting from a diversity scheme. Voters preferred the latter type of candidate, regardless of their ethnicity.</p>
<p>The Westminster parliament currently has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50808536">65 ethnic minority MPs</a> (from a total of 650), which is in line with the one in ten voters from an ethnic minority background. But it took a long time to get to this point and minorities remain underrepresented in other parliaments across Europe and North America. These findings suggest race does play a role in how voters think about candidates – something we should all consider if we value equality in representation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Martin receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Blinder has received funding from the European Commission (Horizon 2020 programme), the Economic and Social Research Council, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Princess Diana of Wales Memorial Fund, Unbound Philanthropy, and Barrow Cadbury Trust. He is a former Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.
</span></em></p>Participants were asked to choose between white and ethnic minority candidates.Nicole Martin, Lecturer in Politics, University of ManchesterScott Blinder, Assistant professor, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1276902019-11-27T12:22:26Z2019-11-27T12:22:26ZHow many voters really switch parties in British elections? What the evidence tells us<p>With the 2019 election campaign in full swing, there is little evidence in the polls that things are changing. The overall picture shows both the Conservatives and Labour are both gaining support but the Conservatives <a href="https://britainelects.newstatesman.com/who-leads-in-our-poll-tracker/">remain on track for a majority</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303325/original/file-20191124-74572-vnbznq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Britain Elects Poll of Polls.</span>
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<p>There have been numerous opportunities for the polls to move in a drastic way. There have been major policy announcements, manifesto launches and several leader debates. Yet little seems to budge, no matter how many times a party leader sticks their hand down the back of the sofa to find another billion for a crowd-pleasing spending pledge. </p>
<p>No wonder so many people are asking: isn’t this campaign a little bit … boring? The Conservatives and Labour are not locked in a tight race for the number one spot. Nothing we’ve seen from the leaders has dramatically changed the way they’re viewed by voters. One of the major parties is not gaining at the expense of the other. Should we expect that to continue? We have significant evidence from the past few elections that shows how much voters really change their mind during a campaign. </p>
<h2>How many voters switch?</h2>
<p>The British electorate is highly “volatile” according to researchers at the British Election Study <a href="https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resources/press-release-most-volatile-british-electorate-in-modern-times/#.Xdp4BDL7QWo">which begun in 1964</a>. Volatility is measured by the number of voters who choose a different party from one election to the next. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303264/original/file-20191123-74603-12j1cxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Election Study</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2010, 32% of voters picked a different party than the one they voted for the previous election in 2005. Between 2010 and 2015, 43% of voters switched.</p>
<p>However, in 2017, the figure <a href="https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Fact-sheet-Explaining-Voter-Volatility.pdf">dropped back down to 33%</a>. This lower volatility is particularly interesting given how much political turmoil unfolded between 2015 and 2017, including the EU referendum.</p>
<p>And while these figures suggest we might expect at least one in three voters to switch parties between elections, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the campaign itself that changes their mind. They may have already decided to take a different option before the campaign began.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303265/original/file-20191123-74588-omojfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Using pre-campaign vote intention we can record how many voters intended to vote for the party they actually voted for.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Election Survey Internet Panel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2017, 70.2% of voters stuck with the same party right the way through the campaign. In 2015, that figure was as high as 75.5%. So the overwhelming majority of voters do not change their mind during the campaign – but there is a substantial minority that do. </p>
<p>In 2015 a quarter of voters changed their mind during the campaign. That’s more than enough voters needed to swing the outcome of the election – and yet they didn’t. That’s because these voters didn’t move decisively in one direction. So, while there was a lot of change in individual vote intention, no single party benefited significantly more than the others. It’s also worth noting that stability was higher for the two major parties compared to voters as a whole, with 82.1% of Labour supporters sticking to their party and 79.9% of Conservative voters. </p>
<p>The overall proportion of voters that moved during the 2017 campaign was even higher – and Labour was the key beneficiary. Popular policies, an enthusiastic leader and a dismal showing by then prime minister Theresa May led to noticeable change over the campaign. Nearly 40% of the people who ended up voting for Labour in 2017 had been undecided or intended to vote for another party at the beginning of the campaign. Increased support for Labour in some polls and in the actual results indicates that in some campaigns votes can shift dramatically in favour of one party.</p>
<h2>What could happen now?</h2>
<p>In all likelihood, the 2019 campaign is affecting the way some people are intending to vote. But because the Conservatives and Labour are both gaining, the broader picture of the outcome of this campaign isn’t changing. The Conservatives appear to be gaining at the expense of the Brexit Party and Labour at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and Greens.</p>
<p>Under the current trajectory both Labour and the Conservatives are convincing similar numbers of voters. Unless there are dramatic revelations in the next couple of weeks, we are unlikely to see a repeat of the dramatic change seen in 2017. </p>
<p>The Conservatives will be happy keeping this campaign as “boring” as possible so long as the big picture doesn’t change between now and polling day. If this campaign is going to be the saving grace for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, they are rapidly running out of time.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300096/original/file-20191104-88414-1yh2yvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerB">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Andersen receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>The British electorate is volatile but one party has to benefit more than the others for that to actually affect the outcome.Peter Andersen, PhD Candidate in Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1216512019-11-13T12:01:49Z2019-11-13T12:01:49ZDo biased polls skew elections? Experimental evidence says yes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292605/original/file-20190916-19076-10aprtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Citizens face a barrage of polling information before an election and evidence suggests they don't know what to do with it. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an election looms <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/uk-election-2019-75714">in the UK</a> and a presidential vote <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/2020-us-presidential-election-38597">approaches in the US next year</a>, opinion polls are everywhere. Citizens will have to navigate a lot of noise as they decide which party or candidate to choose. </p>
<p>As our <a href="https://cdn.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/content-block/UsefulDownloads_Download/804520610F424EFE937F8D71926C3EEA/combined-1902.pdf">research</a> has found, the way citizens receive information about polls through the media can affect the outcome of elections. We conducted several laboratory experiments to test whether voting behaviour is affected by biased reporting of poll results. The results suggest it is. </p>
<p>In our experiments, we asked 375 student volunteers to vote in a series of elections, choosing between two parties – party K and party J. They did so under two conditions: an unbiased control condition, where they saw all polls, and a biased treatment condition, where they saw only the polls where party K’s popularity was the highest. The biased scenario conferred a considerable benefit to party K. In it, party K won 80% of the time. In the control scenario, the party won only 60% of the time (this relatively high proportion was due to pure chance).</p>
<p>In another experiment we explicitly informed participants beforehand that they would be receiving biased information about the polls. Remarkably, party K still gained considerably from the existence of the bias, winning 64% of the time compared to 57% in an unbiased setting. Even when our voters knew they were receiving biased information, they didn’t seem to discount it enough when casting their vote.</p>
<h2>Does media slant matter?</h2>
<p>This all suggests that election results in democratic countries could be sensitive to biases in the way that the traditional media reports poll results.</p>
<p>The traditional media selects which polls to emphasise from a large pool of results. Sometimes outlets do this with an eye to make <a href="https://www.cbs.dk/en/research/departments-and-centres/department-of-international-economics-government-and-business/news/new-publication-by-zoltan-fazekas-0">interesting news</a> or pander to the expectations of the public. The latter means that journalists may <a href="http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2017/section-3-news-and-journalism/media-bias-hits-a-wall/">decide not to publish a poll</a> showing an unexpected result, for example, even if they believe it to be true, out of concern that readers might see them as less credible.</p>
<p>In our research we also found that social media propagates poll results in a biased way. On Twitter, in particular, “good news” for left-liberal parties and politicians spreads more widely than good news for conservatives. </p>
<p>And, as our experimental results show, even when we know this is happening, we citizens struggle to take it into account in the voting booth. Our research tells us this, because we asked participants how they thought candidates of party K and J would perform in the imminent election, getting their estimates on the vote share of each candidate. These expected vote shares were very similar to average poll results, even when voters knew that these results were biased. </p>
<p>Knowing that they’ve only seen the good results for party K, a fully rational voter would have expected a much lower election vote share for party K than average poll results, but this is not what we discovered in our experiments.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292610/original/file-20190916-19035-n64ype.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voters are presented with poll after poll before elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our participants were provided with considerable information and developed considerable experience – voting in 15 elections. The fact that even in our rich information environment people do not discount biased polls suggests that political experience and sophistication is, unfortunately, not enough to undo the effect of biased feedback. </p>
<p>There is concern about the role of voting intention polls in modern democracies. Our results indicate that this concern may be justified. This was an experimental piece of research and we still need to establish whether the results change in noisier election environments in the real world, but they nevertheless provide important food for thought for voters, media outlets who report polling, and even the governments of countries seeking to hold free and fair democratic elections. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerA">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zacharias Maniadis has received research funding from the BA/Leverhulme small grant scheme to complete this research. </span></em></p>Study shows voters struggle to take media bias into account – even when they are explicitely told it’s there.Zacharias Maniadis, Associate Professor in Economics, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165912019-05-17T07:50:14Z2019-05-17T07:50:14ZYou are what you vote: the social and demographic factors that influence your vote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275103/original/file-20190517-69213-7547ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C13%2C1495%2C716&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Your income, type of work, where you were born, and other social and demographic factors influences your vote more than you may think.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation / Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia has changed in many ways over the past two decades. Rising house prices, country-wide improvements in education, an ageing population, and a decline in religious affiliation, are just some of the ways it has changed. At the same time, political power has moved back and forth between the two major parties. How much can we attribute changes in political power to changes in who we are? </p>
<p>Quite a lot, as it turns out.</p>
<h2>Finding the ‘average’ electorate</h2>
<p>We analysed <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/">election results from 2001 to 2016</a> and mapped them against data from the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/census">census</a> to see how socio-demographic characteristics influence voting patterns, and how this has changed over time.</p>
<p>A simple way to measure voting patterns is to consider the two-party preferred (2PP) vote, looking at only the Coalition and the Labor party.</p>
<p>More than 30 socio-demographic characteristics were considered, and an “average” electorate was created using the national electoral average for these characteristics. The influence of each characteristic is then measured by how much the two-party preferred vote differs from the average electorate due to that particular socio-demographic characteristic.</p>
<p>So, which factors strongly influence how we vote?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/compare-the-pair-key-policy-offerings-from-labor-and-the-coalition-in-the-2019-federal-election-116898">Compare the pair: key policy offerings from Labor and the Coalition in the 2019 federal election</a>
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</p>
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<h2>Income, unemployment and education</h2>
<p>Successive Labor leaders accuse the Coalition of only caring about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/27/labor-attack-ad-accuses-scott-morrison-of-only-caring-about-top-end-of-town">“top end of town”</a>.
The Labor party typically campaigns on more <a href="https://theconversation.com/shorten-promises-4-billion-for-child-care-benefitting-887-000-families-116128">progressive policies</a>, which often include tax policies that adversely affect higher income earners. Conversely, the Coalition tend to favour policies that <a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-budget-2019-at-a-glance-114289">reduce taxes</a>. </p>
<p>So it is no surprise that wealthier electorates are more likely to support the Coalition, with incomes having a strong positive effect on the Coalition’s two-party-preferred vote. Unemployment however, is not as influential.</p>
<p>And since 2007, electorates with higher education levels are associated with supporting the Labor party, although this effect is significant only in 2016. Before 2007, education had a negligible effect.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="N1eHd" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/N1eHd/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<h2>Industry and type of work</h2>
<p>Despite the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) traditionally <a href="https://www.viclabor.com.au/about/unions/">supporting</a> Labor, electorates with higher proportions of workers in “extractive” industries (mining, gas, water, agriculture, waste and electricity) and “transformative” industries (construction or manufacturing) are consistently linked with higher support for the Coalition, with the impact of this effect slightly increasing over the years.</p>
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<p><iframe id="H2i9w" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/H2i9w/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>This is not surprising. The Coalition is seen as the party with closer ties to traditional energy industries, which still see a role for <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-australias-experience-contradicts-coalition-emissions-scare-campaign-117079">fossil fuels in Australia’s energy mix</a>. Labor, on the other hand, introduced the mining tax in 2012 (which was first floated by Kevin Rudd in 2010), and has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-major-parties-climate-policies-side-by-side-116896">renewable energy target</a> of 50% electricity generation by 2030 . </p>
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<p><iframe id="ZxVmO" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZxVmO/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>Similarly, electorates with proportionally more workers in managerial, administrative or sales roles are also more likely to support the Coalition.</p>
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<p><iframe id="0cubL" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/0cubL/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<h2>Diversity</h2>
<p>Larger migrant populations from the Middle East and South-Eastern Europe are associated with Labor support. Whereas the number of people born in Asia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere have no discernible effect.</p>
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<p><iframe id="NfxFG" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NfxFG/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>However, speaking languages other than English appears to have a far stronger effect. Electorates with more diverse languages are associated with higher support for the Coalition from 2004 onwards. </p>
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<p><iframe id="D3l1J" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/D3l1J/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>In 2016, an electorate with a high proportion of people who speak a language other than English favour the Coalition by more than 12% when compared to the average electorate (on a 2PP % basis).</p>
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<p><iframe id="vEzzx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vEzzx/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<h2>Other influencing factors: household mobility, relationship types and age</h2>
<p>In each of the six elections, electorates with a higher proportion of people that have recently (in the past five years) moved house were more likely to favour the Coalition.</p>
<p>Our analysis controls for characteristics of home ownership and rental prices, so this effect is not simply due to electorates having low rates of home ownership, or due to electorates having high rental prices. Instead, it suggests people who are more transient are also more likely to be conservative voters, regardless of their home ownership or rental status. (This would need further study, as we do not have individual level voting data.)</p>
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<p><iframe id="pyFkH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/pyFkH/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>De facto relationships, but not marriages, are also found to be an important (and significant) predictor of the two-party preferred vote in all six elections, with more de facto relationships associated with higher support for the Labor party.</p>
<p>Older people are often believed to be more conservative, and indeed we found that electorates with a higher median age are more likely to support the Coalition party.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-grey-tsunami-than-youthquake-despite-record-youth-enrolments-australias-voter-base-is-ageing-115842">More grey tsunami than youthquake: despite record youth enrolments, Australia’s voter base is ageing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Against the tide</h2>
<p>When does an electorate vote very differently from what their socio-demographics would suggest? </p>
<p>The ten electorates with the largest difference between actual and predicted results in 2016 are shown below:</p>
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<p><iframe id="xPyTh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/xPyTh/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>This suggests something beyond socio-demographic characteristics is impacting the results. For example, the Coalition had a much higher vote in Wentworth than predicted in 2016 (and also in 2013), probably due to the popularity of Malcolm Turnbull. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-focus-groups-suggest-wentworth-is-embracing-phelps-but-sharma-helped-by-fear-of-labor-116897">View from The Hill: Focus groups suggest Wentworth is embracing Phelps, but Sharma helped by fear of Labor</a>
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<p><em>Jeremy Forbes, a former Monash University Honours student in econometrics, coauthored this analysis with Rob Hyndman and Di Cook.</em> </p>
<p><em>The full analysis is available <a href="https://robjhyndman.com/publications/elections/">here</a> and the code used for the analysis can be found in the <a href="https://github.com/jforbes14/eechidna">github repository</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How much does your socio-demographic background such as income, type of work and where you were born affect who you vote for? Quite a lot.Rob J Hyndman, Professor of Statistics, Monash UniversityDianne Cook, Professor of Business Analytics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1171712019-05-16T20:08:42Z2019-05-16T20:08:42ZAustralians disagree on how important climate change is: poll<p>Climate change, the environment and energy policy are all key issues in this election campaign, fuelled by <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=the+conversation+extinction+crisis&oq=the+conversation+extinction+crisis&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3j69i64l2.5055j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">compelling evidence</a> of our accelerating impact on the environment and climate. While voters agree more than you might think, there’s still a serious split on the importance of acting on climate change and preventing harm to the environment.</p>
<p>Australia’s major political parties fall into two broad camps on these issues. The Labor party is spruiking policies that control emissions and move towards renewables, consistent with its rhetoric about taking on the “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/labor-s-32-billion-plan-to-tax-the-top-end-of-town-will-hit-10-per-cent-of-taxpayers-20190508-p51lf9.html">top end of town</a>” – including the mining industry. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-major-parties-climate-policies-side-by-side-116896">Australia’s major parties' climate policies side-by-side</a>
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<p>In the Liberal-National view, concerns about energy and the environment are attacks on the businesses that deliver Australia’s prosperity. Moving away from coal towards renewables is typical of an opposition that has neither the ability nor inclination to support a thriving economy and control government finances: all symptomatic of the “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=451836848922059">Bill Australia can’t afford</a>”.</p>
<p>But are Australians really that divided? Between April 29 and May 3, 2019, we asked 1,170 people about their attitudes and behaviours, including questions about voting intentions for those respondents eligible to vote in the upcoming election.</p>
<h2>Energy and environment attitudes</h2>
<p>We wanted to know how our respondents intended to vote. How did that correlate with their attitudes towards climate change, and policies around energy and the environment? </p>
<p>We asked respondents to rate various statements about their behaviour and attitudes on a <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html">Likert five-point scale</a>, where 1 means “strongly agree” and 5 means “strongly disagree”. </p>
<p>These statements included eight questions about attitudes towards climate change, and five questions on various policies (a tax on carbon, an emissions trading scheme, business incentives for carbon-neutral production, and regulation of mining and plastic use). </p>
<p>We also asked respondents to rate the importance of the broad statement: “How important is it for the government to implement policies to address environmental damage and climate change?” </p>
<p>(Note: the main purpose of the survey was to explore people’s likely choices about smart meters. In common with any survey, there may be many sources of sampling bias. Our survey was not designed to be a representative sample of political constituencies, and so is not an attempt to predict the election outcome.)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274865/original/file-20190516-69195-1qlsikk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Then we divided the responses roughly into the two “camps” – Liberal-affiliated and Labour-affiliated – excluding the 14 responses for people intending to vote for the Centre Alliance. This gave us 635 right-leaning voters and 541 left-leaning voters.</p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, we discovered a lot of agreement across the right- and left-leaning camps. On average, our respondents agreed about their commitment to recycling and also with the statement “I think it’s important that households do their bit for the environment”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275042/original/file-20190516-69178-o50cb8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>In terms of their attitudes towards conserving energy, both camps agreed that conserving energy was important because they want to control their energy bills. The left-leaning camp had no strong opinions about conserving energy to help limit climate change; the right-leaning camp disagreed that they would conserve energy because of climate change.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/carry-over-credits-and-carbon-offsets-are-hot-topics-this-election-but-what-do-they-actually-mean-116748">Carry-over credits and carbon offsets are hot topics this election – but what do they actually mean?</a>
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<p>This suggests that – for the broadest impact – demand-side management policies should focus on how households can save money by conserving energy – and smart meters could be a key ingredient in this strategy. Behavioural tools are likely to be important too and smart meters have capabilities to combine economic incentives and behavioural motivators, as we’ve explored in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988319301045">previous research</a> into behavioural insights for encouraging energy savings.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274871/original/file-20190516-69169-lvnjj6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Both camps agreed that businesses should be given incentives towards carbon-neutral production. They disagreed that current government policies were good policies. So there is a strong appetite for policy change. </p>
<p>Neither camp had strong opinions about carbon tax or emissions trading policies. Perhaps this is because debates around these policies are old news from the Gillard-Rudd-Abbott era, or perhaps most people just aren’t sure what these policies would mean for them personally.</p>
<p>There were still areas of disagreement. The left-leaning camp had generally stronger opinions about climate change, agreeing that environmental damage and climate change are problems. The right-leaning camp on average neither agrees nor disagrees that these are problems. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274869/original/file-20190516-69199-vkynx7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275030/original/file-20190516-69186-3rwcx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The left-leaning camp tends to agree that the government should introduce policies to regulate plastics and mining – unsurprising given that this camp includes a substantial number of people intending to vote Green. The right-leaning camp was neutral on these issues.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/compare-the-pair-key-policy-offerings-from-labor-and-the-coalition-in-the-2019-federal-election-116898">Compare the pair: key policy offerings from Labor and the Coalition in the 2019 federal election</a>
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<p>Overall, this survey suggests more consensus across Australian voters than politicians might like us to believe. Once the election is over, and there is no more political mileage to be had from the mud-slinging that has characterised this campaign, then perhaps we can hope our political leaders will start expending some energy on judiciously analysing and assessing the policy challenges ahead. </p>
<p>This will be essential if we are to come up with policies to mitigate climate change and environmental damage, whilst also ensuring Australia’s jobs, wages and prosperity.</p>
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<p><em>This article has been updated to correct a chart labelling error.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voters disagree on importance of climate change, universally dislike current energy and environment policy.Michelle Baddeley, Director, Research Professor Institute for Choice, University of South AustraliaKaren Cong, Senior Programmer, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165072019-05-12T20:12:38Z2019-05-12T20:12:38ZAvoid the politics and let artificial intelligence decide your vote in the next election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273730/original/file-20190510-183093-1wx4p7a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C89%2C2914%2C1778&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Would you let AI decide who you should vote for?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/CYCLONEPROJECT </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If trust in our politicians <a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-trust-in-politicians-and-democracy-hits-an-all-time-low-new-research-108161">is at an all time low</a>, maybe it’s time to reconsider how we elect them in the first place.</p>
<p>Can artificial intelligence (AI) help with our voting decisions?</p>
<p>Music and video streaming services already suggest songs, movies or TV shows that we will probably enjoy. Online shopping sites helpfully suggest other products we might like to buy. All this is based on what we’ve already watched, listened to or bought. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-ai-meets-your-shopping-experience-it-knows-what-you-buy-and-what-you-ought-to-buy-101737">When AI meets your shopping experience it knows what you buy – and what you ought to buy</a>
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<p>So why not have a similar system to suggest whom we should vote for?</p>
<p>With preferential voting, political parties and candidates already issue how-to-vote cards. But what if an AI service could create a personalised how-to-vote card for each and every one of us?</p>
<h2>How do we decide?</h2>
<p>Some of us are “rusted on” voters who back the same party, come what may, while others are “swinging voters” who compare options before making a choice. </p>
<p>Politicians tend to focus on the latter during election campaigns, as they know these voters may well decide their fate.</p>
<p>Politicians may have different beliefs, values and policy proposals. But if we analyse their <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/06/the-art-of-political-persuasion/">persuasion techniques</a>, there are striking similarities in the <em>way in which</em> politicians try to persuade us to vote for them.</p>
<p>They talk of “objective evidence” and warn voters about the “real cost” of their opponent’s policies.</p>
<p>Yet research shows we tend to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111157" title="Economics and Politics in the 1984 American Presidential Election">overrate the persuasiveness of “hip-pocket” warnings</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.08501010.x" title="Social Identity Theory and Party Identification">underestimate the impact of party identification</a>.</p>
<p>When it comes to debating politics, we may try to find a rational or logical argument based on expertise to silence our opponent. </p>
<p>Or we may resort to the argument that our opponent will be the one who ends up having to pay for their misguided beliefs.</p>
<p>But it’s these kinds of arguments (about money or logic) that prove remarkably ineffective. What is more likely to win over swinging voters are appeals that arouse emotion (particularly fear) and tribal sentiments (“us-them thinking”).</p>
<p>US social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says we tend to accept new information more readily if it <a href="https://righteousmind.com/">aligns with our deeply held beliefs and values</a>, while Australian psychologist Katharine Greenaway and colleagues say we find information useful and trustworthy <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167214559709" title="Shared Identity Is Key to Effective Communication">if it’s presented to us by someone we regard as “one of us”</a>.</p>
<p>So is there a better way for us voters to determine whom we should be voting for? Is there a way to take values, emotions and tribalism out of the equation? That’s where AI comes in.</p>
<h2>AI is already ‘helping’ us decide things</h2>
<p>Political parties have the same problem that faces retailers, hotels, banks and many other businesses, in that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauljankowski/2016/08/24/5-ways-to-break-through-the-noise/">the public is constantly bombarded with too much marketing noise</a> and far too many messages.</p>
<p>To solve this problem of selling, business has turned to AI.</p>
<p>When booking accommodation on a hotel website, you may find yourself in a conversation with an AI <a href="https://blog.growthbot.org/how-chatbots-use-ai-machine-learning-and-nlp-to-transform-marketing-and-sales">chatbot</a>. Based on the information you provide, the chatbot may suggest activities or <a href="https://chatbotslife.com/top-5-ways-chatbots-are-revolutionizing-the-hotel-industry-a3a07e7ea895">persuade you to upgrade your room, book a hire car</a>, or even get a massage.</p>
<p>Call your bank, telco or other service provider and you most likely <a href="https://www.smartsheet.com/voice-assistants-artificial-intelligence">interact with an AI voice assistant</a>: “In a few words, please tell us the reason for your call.” </p>
<p>Retailers are capturing and analysing your purchase data to develop <a href="https://www.quantium.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Case-Study-WOW-Personalisation.pdf">personalised offers</a>, and using AI to influence and <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-predictive-ai-will-change-shopping">predict</a> what you are about to buy next.</p>
<p>Supermarkets such as the UK-based <a href="https://www.information-age.com/tesco-using-ai-gain-customer-insight-123466328/">Tesco</a>, US giant <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/08/29/how-walmart-is-using-machine-learning-ai-iot-and-big-data-to-boost-retail-performance/#740084f66cb1">Walmart</a>, and even <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/woolworths-looks-to-large-scale-conversational-ai-518016">Woolworths</a> in Australia are investing heavily in this area.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-ai-meets-your-shopping-experience-it-knows-what-you-buy-and-what-you-ought-to-buy-101737">When AI meets your shopping experience it knows what you buy – and what you ought to buy</a>
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<h2>Politicians already use AI to target you</h2>
<p>Given voters are more likely to respond positively to a political message if it resonates with them, political parties try to target voters with relevant messages. To do that, they too <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-artificial-intelligence-conquered-democracy-77675">employ AI</a>.</p>
<p>In the same way businesses use <a href="https://strikesocial.com/blog/retargeting-social-media-ads/">retargeting</a> strategies to persuade us to buy or act, politicians now do the same.</p>
<p>Retargeting is the activity of tracking a person’s online activity. It includes what they comment on, what sites they visit, the products they research, and what articles they “like”. </p>
<p>Using this information, a politician can then send a <a href="https://becominghuman.ai/machine-learning-and-retargeting-9ffb77d768c3">customised message</a>.</p>
<h2>AI for the people</h2>
<p>If politicians are using AI to try to persuade us how to vote, why not flip this around and give us the AI tools needed to help us decide how to vote?</p>
<p>Some media companies already have online questionnaires – such as the ABC’s <a href="https://votecompass.abc.net.au/">Vote Compass</a> and News Corp’s <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/how-should-i-vote-find-out-which-party-best-represents-your-views/news-story/6f27f112914987511574f5c549d69532">How should I vote?</a> – that try to predict your political leaning.</p>
<p>While this may be a useful tool for some, you still need to follow political news and current affairs to make sense of many of the questions. So tools like these appear targeted at the already politically engaged.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-protect-us-from-the-risks-of-advanced-artificial-intelligence-we-need-to-act-now-107615">To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now</a>
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<p>What if there was a tool that did not ask you anything but instead you gave it access to your digital footprint. This could be your browsing history, your shopping habits, your location data, and even your social media activity. In fact, anything that showed how you lived, but on your terms.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no such tool exists yet, as far as we are aware.</p>
<p>But why should the politicians have the AI and not you, the voter? Surely it’s only a matter of time before such a tool is available to us.</p>
<p>Who knows what it might say about you? It might even change the mind of a “rusted on” voter. Now that would be something new for political parties to consider.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Mols is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Queensland. He receives research funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Roberts is a Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Mortimer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Plenty of services use AI to study your behaviour to suggest new things to you. So could such a tool help you decide how to vote?Frank Mols, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, The University of QueenslandGary Mortimer, Associate Professor in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of TechnologyJonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165882019-05-08T20:09:39Z2019-05-08T20:09:39ZForeign-born voters and their families helped elect Turnbull in 2016. Can they save ScoMo?<p>At the 2016 federal election, a small but significant vote cast by foreign-born Australians and their families <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/04/27/campaigning-votes-ethnic-communities/15562872008050">helped elect the Liberal Party</a>. The voters backed conservative minor parties in typically Labor-leaning electorates, and their preferences flowed to the Liberals.</p>
<p>Electoral pundits made little of this phenomenon at the time, and the media were not particularly interested. But in the wake of a similar <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-social-conservatism-among-ethnic-communities-drove-a-strong-no-vote-in-western-sydney-87509">voting pattern in the same sex marriage plebiscite in 2017</a>, the search is now on to find the elusive “ethnic vote”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/look-at-me-look-at-me-how-image-conscious-but-visionless-leaders-have-made-for-a-dreary-campaign-116421">Look at me! Look at me! How image-conscious but visionless leaders have made for a dreary campaign</a>
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<h2>Who are these voters and where do they live?</h2>
<p>The two largest collectives of non-English speaking groups are Chinese-Australians, and people from the Indian subcontinent including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. These “ethnic groups” are already multicultural, multilingual and politically diverse. </p>
<p>Mandarin remains the dominant Chinese language, followed by Cantonese, then other smaller groups – mainly from Malaysia and Indo-China. Among those from the subcontinent, Hindi still trumps Punjabi, and there are at least another four or five language groups, each with over 40,000 speakers.</p>
<p>Pockets of Chinese-Australians concentrated in key swing seats in NSW and Victoria were mainly responsible for the surprise outcomes in 2016. That included <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coleman-seat-at-risk-as-labor-woos-migrants/news-story/8087f66c1eec8a87d8d05f16f1756b19">Reid, Banks and Barton</a> in NSW, and Chisholm in Victoria. Three of the four went to the Liberals, but on demographic grounds and political trends at the time, all could have been delivered to Labor. (While Barton stayed Labor, the swing to the Liberals was significant.)</p>
<p>In 2019, we could see a similar pattern emerge in these seats again, as well as in Moreton in QLD, Hotham in Victoria, and Parramatta, Greenway and Bennelong in NSW.</p>
<iframe title="Electorates with large numbers of Chinese-Australian voters" aria-label="Column Chart" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/iAdRy/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<p>Australia has over 300 ancestries, 100 religions and 300 languages, so invoking a category like “ethnic” does not lead in a particular direction – especially given the divisions and diversity within cultural groups and language communities.</p>
<p>And this population diversity has been shifting as newer groups have accelerated their presence, and older groups have passed on. The foreign born population now have a growing number of Australian-born children, although many may not yet be able to vote. </p>
<h2>How are the parties targeting them?</h2>
<p>The main ethnic communities lobby group, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (<a href="http://fecca.org.au/">FECCA</a>), has produced <a href="http://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/FECCA-Election-Platform-2019_FINAL-web.pdf">a policy wish-list</a> and is seeking responses from the parties. </p>
<p>Among the majors, only the Greens have a <a href="https://greens.org.au/policies/multiculturalism">clearly articulated multicultural policy</a>, having put a <a href="https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2018-06/20160528_Multiculturalism.pdf">proposal for a Multiculturalism Act</a> with subsequent implementation and rights machinery to the Senate over a year ago. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/labors-commitment-to-multicultural-australia/">ALP still sits on its hands on the legislative option</a>, possibly fearing that supporting such a move might trigger negative reactions from working class and more racist voters. </p>
<p>Their <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/media/1868/labors_plan_for_multicultural_communities.pdf">policy</a> now includes a “body” named Multicultural Australia, with a string of commissioners across the country. It will probably come under Tony Burke as minister, focusing on citizenship and access issues. In this, it is a variant on the 1990s <a href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/library/media/Timeline-Commentary/id/117.An-office-for-multicultural-affairs">Office of Multicultural Affairs</a>. This was once part of the Hawke/Keating prime minister’s office, but was abolished by John Howard as soon as he could. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-social-media-platform-wechat-could-be-a-key-battleground-in-the-federal-election-113925">Chinese social media platform WeChat could be a key battleground in the federal election</a>
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<p>Labor has committed more funds for community language schools and criticised delays in processing citizenship applications, as well as the high level of English required to pass the test. Former Senator Sam Dastyari <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/04/27/campaigning-votes-ethnic-communities/15562872008050">has argued</a> that opening up parental reunion is a major offer to a range of ethnic groups needing older family members to do caring work. This move, as one of this author’s informants said, would really “win the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desi">Desi</a>’s heart”, and probably many other ethnic groups as well. The idea has prompted a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/government-warns-labor-s-unlimited-parent-visa-is-unsustainable">hostile response</a> from the Coalition. </p>
<p>While Liberal leader Scott Morrison reiterates the old Turnbull mantra of Australia being the most successful multicultural country, the government’s lacklustre Multicultural Advisory Council no longer seems to have a web presence other than <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/multicultural-affairs/australian-multicultural-council">one</a> which promotes integration and Australian values.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan-back-our-multicultural-communities">Liberals</a> propose a system of aged care “navigators” to help people with limited English survive the aged care system, while also injecting funds into start-up businesses run by migrants.</p>
<p>Conservative think-tank the Institute for Public Affairs retains as its second policy demand of any Liberal government <a href="https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IPA-Research-20-Policies-to-Fix-Australia.pdf">that Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act be abolished</a>. The Liberals took this into 2013 and 2016; Morrison has said it’s not on for 2019, though the right of the party is still committed. </p>
<h2>What role will they play in the election?</h2>
<p>Ethnic communities are not necessarily either cohesive or unanimous in their political viewpoints, unless something particularly touches on their “ethnicity”. </p>
<p>Recent anti-Chinese sentiment reflected in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/malcolm-turnbull-slams-dutton-morrison-over-chinese-donor/10983992">media headlines</a> about alleged corruption of Australian political parties by wealthy Chinese residents may be doing that among Chinese communities. Many Australian Chinese think that Labor is much more sensitive to these issues than the Coalition, and Liberal Party Chinese figures have voiced these concerns in public gatherings.</p>
<p>Although they can be very interested and involved in politics, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07256868.2011.618111">Chinese Australians have tended to hold back from active political engagement in the past</a>. Indians, by contrast, bring some knowledge of English and, coming from a Westminster democratic system, tend to be more directly engaged – as party members for example. The Greens are particularly open to south Asian members; so, it seems, is the Christian Democratic Party (CDP).</p>
<p>While there are many conservative and religious parties across the country, only NSW has the CDP. It’s offering a “multicultural” array of candidates, and directing preferences to the Liberals. The party was key in funnelling support from East Asian intensive electorates in 2016. </p>
<p>After unsuccessful discussions over a number of elections as to whether a socially conservative alliance might be formed between Muslims and Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Daoist and non-religious groups, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/christian-group-rally-with-muslims-targeting-godless-alp-ahead-of-election-20190506-p51kkh.html">something like the alliance appears to have been launched in Sydney</a>. Reportedly “targeting Labor seats that had a high no vote in the same-sex marriage survey”, it could put some further some punch behind the Christian Democratic Party even though it’s not directly affiliated. The CDP is also targeting the Pacific communities in its <a href="https://www.cdp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Media-Realese-FOLAU.pdf">campaign of support</a> for Christian footballer Israel Folau. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, parties of the far right are competing to present their anti-multicultural agendas. In Lindsay, neo-Nazi Jim Saleam represents the Australia First Party, while across the country, right-leaning parties tussle for the xenophobic vote. That includes Rise Up Australia, Shooters Farmers and Fishers, Australian Conservatives, Australian National Conservatives, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and United Australia Party. </p>
<p>Although these parties may preference the Coalition, they may prove to be one force that drives ethnic communities towards the ALP. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-major-parties-indigenous-health-election-commitments-stack-up-115714">How the major parties’ Indigenous health election commitments stack up</a>
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<h2>Election day and beyond</h2>
<p>Election day will provide the proof for many of the claims about ethnicity, voting, influence and ideology. It’s highly likely that the senators elected from the right will run a unity ticket against multiculturalism in the new Senate. </p>
<p>This year may well prove the last flash of a mainly White Australian election, with its defenders doubling down on the right, while the centre takes on a multi-coloured hue, and the left is ever more rainbow. A lot of the knowledge that we may glean from the election process will only be learned in its aftermath, picking through small details and trying to form a pattern of explanation. </p>
<p>It has taken the Australian public sphere the best part of three years to work out what happened with cultural diversity and its complexities in 2016. We may well have just as long to wait this time around.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Jakubowicz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Christian Democratic Party in NSW could play a key role in the election by funnelling support from voters in electorates with large East Asian populations to the Liberal Party.Andrew Jakubowicz, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165382019-05-06T12:44:03Z2019-05-06T12:44:03ZWhy South African voters are resisting mobile political campaigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272484/original/file-20190503-103045-145nwff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C567%2C3817%2C3593&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mobile campaigning can frustrate and annoy potential voters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">asiandelight/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mobile technology will arguably go down in history as the most successful innovation of our lifetime. Mobile devices, especially phones, are ubiquitous in large parts of the world. On the African continent, the rates of mobile phone ownership and access <a href="https://www.gsma.com/r/mobileeconomy/sub-saharan-africa/">are rising exponentially</a>.</p>
<p>Many organisations have recognised the opportunities this presents. Political parties are no exception. The 2008 election in the United States is <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/1746/988">widely regarded</a> as a tipping point for the use of mobile devices in political campaigning. Since then it’s <a href="http://washingtonmobilemarketing.com/political-campaigns">become common</a> for politicians all over the world to canvas for support and engage with the electorate using mobile messaging services. </p>
<p>South Africa is no exception. In the lead up to the country’s 2014 national election and its 2016 local government elections, almost all the major political parties deployed a raft of mobile marketing strategies. These included SMS, MMS, political party apps, mobile voice calls and social networking sites. The same has been true in the months and weeks leading up to the 2019 national and provincial elections.</p>
<p>This sort of online interaction with the electorate is important. Research <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/article/24/2/163/762320">has shown</a> that it promotes critical political skills. Among these skills are the ability to acquire political information and engage in political discourse. Online interaction also reinforces voters’ perception of parties’ competence. </p>
<p>But it can also alienate and frustrate voters. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331380355_Privacy_concerns_internal_political_efficacy_intrusiveness_and_voter_resistance_to_the_acceptance_of_political_mobile_marketing_campaigns">A study</a> I conducted found South African voters felt that mobile political campaigns were intrusive, violated their privacy and made them feel disillusioned with the political process. </p>
<p>This suggests political parties that plan to keep using mobile campaigning should proceed with caution. These findings provide important guidelines for reducing voters’ resistance to political mobile marketing campaigns. For instance, parties should prioritise permissive marketing strategies – explicitly asking people to “opt in”. Obtaining consent is one way to foster a positive reception from voters.</p>
<h2>Privacy fears</h2>
<p>For <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331380355_Privacy_concerns_internal_political_efficacy_intrusiveness_and_voter_resistance_to_the_acceptance_of_political_mobile_marketing_campaigns">my study</a>, I surveyed 971 people. They resided in South Africa’s Gauteng province, which – although it is largely urban – is very cosmopolitan and can be considered as <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sabr/article/view/110928">a microcosm</a> of the national population. The average age of the sample was 27. </p>
<p>I asked respondents to evaluate their perceptions of online and mobile political marketing campaigns. I wanted to know, on a sliding scale and if at all, how much they felt these campaigns threatened their digital privacy and how much that perception influenced their acceptance of this form of political communication. Questions were also asked about the extent to which voters believed in their ability to influence the political process, and how much they participated in these processes.</p>
<p>The participants were concerned that political campaigns directed at them via their mobile devices threatened their digital privacy. They worried that political parties were able to track their mobile web browsing preferences and behaviour through the use of cookies. They also feared that malicious programmes could be used to infiltrate their mobile accounts and obtain their personal information for future political campaigns.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that political parties are engaging in malicious or illegal activities, but it’s telling that this is people’s perception and fear.</p>
<p>Another finding was that voters highly value and desire their privacy. This means they view the collection of their personal information – such as their cell phone numbers – by political parties as highly invasive. They became irritated when they received unsolicited political messages. So the messages had the opposite of the desired effect: they created apathy towards the political party in question.</p>
<p>Finally, the people I surveyed were not impressed by the actual content of mobile political campaigns. They found the messages exaggerated and confusing.</p>
<h2>Declining engagement</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111186?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Research</a> has emphasised that voters are more likely to engage and participate in the political process if two factors are in place. First, they must they possess a reasonable understanding of how the political system works. Second, they must perceive that their participation would make a difference in the political process. </p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/19716/Mattes_South_Africa_Democracy_2002.pdf?sequence=1">evidence suggests</a> these conditions are on the decline. Invasive, confusing and unwelcome mobile campaigns will not help to rectify this situation. In fact, they may serve to drive voters further away.</p>
<p>The use of the mobile and other digital technologies in the political process has incredible benefits for citizens and political parties. It will almost certainly continue to command centre stage in political communication for the foreseeable future. Political parties should take heed of people’s concerns and complaints about this method, and adapt their approach accordingly. If voters feel their privacy concerns are being respected and they have a choice to “opt in”, they are more likely to engage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Kofi Maduku receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the University of Johannesburg. </span></em></p>South African voters felt that mobile political campaigns were intrusive, violated their privacy and made them feel disillusioned with the political process.Daniel K. Maduku, Lecturer in Marketing Management, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/841442018-06-26T11:11:33Z2018-06-26T11:11:33ZHere’s a better way to think about identity politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224893/original/file-20180626-112641-1570vq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3484%2C2321&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/Victoria Jones</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Identity politics has become a phrase of common currency in recent years, yet it is often painfully, and badly, used. Generally, it is wheeled out in a negative context. Take UK environment minister <a href="https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/998478337541537792">Michael Gove</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/OxfordUnion/status/998647034126241792">Tim Farron</a>, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, for example. Both sought to distance themselves from such thinking in two separate speeches given on the same day earlier this year. Gove said “identitarians” undermine liberal politics, while Farron condemned identity politics as a “poison”.</p>
<p>In fact, it seems the term is used almost entirely negatively, by people who wish to argue against the concept. However, they rarely stop long enough to adequately, or meaningfully, define the term to a point of usefulness. We should recall George Orwell’s remark on the word “fascism” in his essay <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit">Politics and the English Language</a>; that it has come to mean little more than “something not desirable”. In this sense, “identity politics” has become the new fascism – or indeed the new centrism, neo-liberalism, Blairism or populism. It is simply shorthand for a concept or idea that you dislike.</p>
<p>But underlying each of these terms is something worth clearly identifying and discussing. After all, there is such a thing as fascism – there are clearly fascists. The same is true of identity politics. There is clearly something called identity out there, and it clearly plays a role in politics. But what is it, and should it be taken seriously? </p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/16/british-identity-key-brexit-crisis-negotiations">argued</a>, identity is the image someone has of themselves. This image is made of different components – football teams we support, cities we live in, music we listen to, and more. This is not an effort to give a final definition, but it is an effort to give a useful one.</p>
<p>Identity politics, at face value, is a politics that speaks to our image of ourselves. Immediately, we face a trap – it’s easy to declare all politics identity politics, because everything relates to our identity. But this is to erase the other things that politics is about – such as healthcare, taxes, and other issues that concern who gets what. It risks conceding the argument to those who think that “identity politics” is a major, if not the greatest, problem with politics today, because those voices so often proclaim that “identity politics” is taking over, and destroying the space for “normal” or “good” politics. </p>
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<p>A more satisfactory position is to argue that all politics involves an element of identity. Instead of disregarding it, we should seek to understand it – but we should acknowledge that this isn’t a sufficient condition for understanding any one issue. This creates space for meaningful and interesting discussions around identity, but also an awareness that either seeking to remove or exclusively focus on identity as the aspect of politics worth discussing is ultimately going to produce incomplete answers. </p>
<p>How can we apply this practically? Take, for example, the discussion over Brexit. If we discuss Brexit purely as a matter of economics – of the allocation of resources, the openness of countries to trade, the free movement of capital, and so on – we might produce an “answer” to Brexit that seemingly reconciles all the different economic issues and produces an optimal outcome. For the sake of argument, let us imagine that is that the UK becomes rather like <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-brexit-options-a-refresh-79364">Norway</a>, and stays in the single market. Yet, that solution proves wildly unpopular – and likely would. Why? </p>
<p>Because it would exist in tension with the identities of many people, who feel that it would be an unacceptable infringement on aspects of the country that they identify with – or the values that form a part of their identity – through the lack of control on immigration or, say, over new rules that the UK would have to follow, or so on. Those who back a Norway-style deal might, rightly in this scenario, argue that the deal they had was the most efficient in economic terms. But if it has no resonance with identities – or worse, actively is seen as being hostile to them – then it will struggle to gain ground.</p>
<p>Ultimately, identities are the images that we have of ourselves. Having that self-image challenged is incredibly disruptive and it can be very difficult for us to adapt that image in light of the challenge. Most identity changes occur over longer periods of time, and with less tension and conflict.</p>
<p>If anything, therefore, identity politics should call on us to reflect on what it is about what we do that angers others so much, and how we can reconcile the different aspects of our identities in a way that produces mutually beneficial settlements. It should be a means to see a vital aspect of all politics, and how it plays a key role in shaping how people respond to us. On that ground alone, identity politics is worth understanding.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84144/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Oliver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Given that so many people have a strong opinion about identity politics, it is surprising how few of us have a clear idea on what it actually is.Timothy Oliver, Teaching fellow in British and Comparative Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966592018-06-07T10:54:51Z2018-06-07T10:54:51ZGuernsey has no political parties – but a referendum could be about to change all that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221801/original/file-20180605-119850-1aiso9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C2496%2C1837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a community with no political party brands. No Conservatives, no Labour – no political leaders and elections with no party policies. Can you envision an electoral system with no party logos or slogans, no safe seats and no activists? A place where elected representatives vote on a matter of personal principle rather than being “whipped” in line with party politics.</p>
<p>Does this sound appealing or does it sound confusing and unworkable? Well, this community, “the States of Deliberation”, does exist. It’s alive and well in the British Crown Dependency of Guernsey – part of the Channel Islands.</p>
<p>However, this way of doing politics could be about to change. Guernsey is holding its first ever <a href="https://www.gov.gg/referendum">referendum</a> on the island’s electoral process on October 10 2018. </p>
<p>All of Guernsey’s 38 members of parliament, otherwise known as deputies, are independent figures. Deputies stand in elections as individuals rather than parties. They present a personally developed, concise manifesto, which outlines personal characteristics such as educational background, personality traits, professional and individual experiences. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221816/original/file-20180605-119856-1tafr3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Is Guernsey really ready for change?</span>
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<p>Often, they set out the broad values that will guide them if elected. During the 2016 general election, one member of parliament proposed that if elected they would be “challenging, questioning, independent, defend the island’s heritage and eccentrically different”.</p>
<p>“I go to church, and I’ve studied law and I’ve worked in a recruitment agency,” said another. “I believe the island should have the best possible education system it can afford, improved health systems, support children’s services and family life and ensure we continue to have a balanced economy towards tourism and banking. Trust me and I’ll do my best for you.”</p>
<p>However, something is often missing from the manifestos and campaign material – and it’s not just the affiliation with a political party. Few candidates get into specifics about the actions they would actually take if elected. According to several parliamentarians, that only gets discussed after a general election – “often 18 months after polling day”. That’s how long it generally takes for government committees such as the Committee for Home Affairs or the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture to be formed and establish a policy agenda.</p>
<p>Deputies do often form informal transient alliances – collections of constantly changing coalitions that are sometimes seen as quasi-political parties. These groupings are based on prominent issues of the day such education reform, housing and transport links. However, these unofficial transient alliances currently have no “party” name, structure, ideology or identity. Nor are they generally publicised to the wider population, functioning largely behind closed doors. So the personalities and profiles of deputies take precedence over policy and party in Guernsey. </p>
<h2>The referendum</h2>
<p>In October, voters get to choose whether to switch from voting for a candidate in their local constituency to island-wide voting. Each citizen could be given the same number of votes as there are deputy seats and could elect the whole parliament from candidates across the island.</p>
<p>In a recent study, we found many members of the Guernsey government believe that if the public opt for island-wide voting, it could open the path for political parties to form on Guernsey. Formalised alliances or parties would allow deputies to stand on a shared platform, campaign with a collective set of focused policies and make the practice of governing more efficient, effective and proactive. This in turn could simplify the electoral process for voters by proving greater clarity of what each party stands for. Voters might also get a better of idea of what deputies stand for before they elect them. That, in turn, could make them more accountable in office.</p>
<p>But it’s not known if the people of Guernsey actually want all this. There was a record turnout of 72% in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-guernsey-36115151">last election in 2016</a>, suggesting voters actually quite like the independent, personal touch. The majority of voters between 18 and 24 told us they didn’t have an appetite for political parties and value Guernsey’s current approach to politics. </p>
<p>And, at least from the outside looking in, they seem to run more positive campaigns with less mudslinging than an average election. As they head to the ballot in October, Guernsey’s voters will surely be thinking about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/political-divisions-39147">divisive nature</a> of party politics in the US, or even closer to home in the UK, where two parties dominate. The grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side of the Channel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Pich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Islanders currently stand as independent candidates, but this special system could be about to disappear.Christopher Pich, Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925282018-05-10T11:07:25Z2018-05-10T11:07:25ZRevealed: how Italian mayors hoard parking penalties ahead of elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213396/original/file-20180405-189795-1rqkwml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most of the 20m fines issued every year by municipalities in Italy are for illegal parking, speeding, entering bus lanes or skipping congestion charges. They account for about 15% of non-tax revenues for local authorities, bringing in €11 per capita a year.</p>
<p>But I’ve found that Italy’s mayors tend to act with far greater leniency towards unruly drivers when an election approaches.</p>
<p>Elected governments all over the world <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-politicians-invest-in-opera-when-seeking-re-election-heres-why-93767">time policies</a> to maximise their chances of re-election. Raising the pay of civil servants or cutting taxes delivers greater returns for a party if announced just before it faces a public vote. Unpopular reforms, meanwhile, are more likely to be implemented in the first part of a term in government. This is known as the political budget cycle.</p>
<p>I collected data from municipal budgets and elections over the past 20 years, looking in particular at how many parking tickets each mayor issued, and how much money they actually managed to collect. I divided mayors into two groups according to their so-called “electoral incentives” – that is, whether they feel their re-election is at risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213397/original/file-20180405-95689-h7vnea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I’ll let this one slide. But you might not be so lucky next week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>There are a number of ways to measure these “electoral incentives”. The simplest is to consider the margin of victory with which the incumbent won the previous election. Mayors elected with just a few votes more than their challenger are bound to be under stronger pressure in the incoming elections. I also looked at mayors who are at the end of their term and close to facing another election, as opposed to mayors who are freshly elected.</p>
<p>Just like US presidents, Italian mayors are barred from seeking re-election after their second term in office, so I also compared mayors in their first term (and therefore seeking re-election) with mayors in their second term (barred from running).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210263/original/file-20180314-113479-1ddz7ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Effect of Electoral Incentives on traffic enforcement. Average Euros per capita. Lines are 95% confidence intervals.</span>
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<p>Mayors elected with a small margin of victory issue almost one euro per capita less in fines, and cash in about 50 euro cents less than those who won elections with a wide margin. Mayors who barely won their seat don’t seem to want to disappoint those precious marginal voters and put their own re-election at risk.</p>
<p>Mayors in their second (and last) term in office are slightly more strict. By law they cannot run for a third term, so perhaps they feel more free to charge drivers. They know they won’t pay an electoral cost as a result. </p>
<p>Last, we look into the third way to pinpoint political budget cycles, by comparing mayors nearing the end of their term in office with those who have just been elected. The former issue roughly the same amount of fines as colleagues at the beginning of their term, but they cash on average 18 euro cents per capita fewer per year. This may not seem very much, but would account for about 1.5m Euros in a year for municipalities such as Milan or Rome. The closer the elections, the more lenient they get in chasing undisciplined drivers. They seem to be trying not to bother drivers just as they are deciding how to cast their vote.</p>
<p>The moral of the story is that if your mayor fears for their re-election you’re less likely to get a ticket for your parking indiscretions. You’re also less likely to be chased for payment if you do get one. But of course, you’d never park where you shouldn’t anyway, regardless of when the next election is. Would you?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emanuele Bracco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you’re going to drive badly in Italy, do it towards the end of the local mayor’s term in office.Emanuele Bracco, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.