One final short AS-Level Politics essay again regarding voting behaviour. This essay talks at greater length about one factor: social class. From 2003 and running to only about 660 words. All of my school work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.
How Important is class in influencing voting behaviour?
While the it cannot be said that class has no influence over the voting patterns of the electorate, the actual level of this influence is by no means certain. Political analysts do not agree on how much voting behaviours are influenced by class, and the lines of the affect of class and affect of other factors are by no means clear. In spite of this, there is no doubt in anyone’s view that class has, traditionally at least, had a role in voting patterns. [read more]
Despite a swing to the Labour Party, if the pattern of voting seen when comparing the 2010 local election results (a poll taken at the same time as the last UK general election) to the 2014 local election results is applied to the general election results, the bellweather seat of Calder Valley would remain a Conservative seat.
There are of course a number of caveats when making a comparison of this type, but it seems that had the general election been held on 22nd May 2014 then the Conservative candidate would have been returned to parliament, albeit with a substantially reduced majority. Additionally, it appears that all of the indicators agree with this projected outcome. What follows is my long-form statistical analysis of the situation. The calculations from which I draw my conclusions are available for download at the end. If you do not want to read the full analysis then I suggest you jump straight to the conclusion.
Before I get into the numbers, a little background on the UK Parliament constituency of Calder Valley. Created in 1983 the constituency has historically been a bellweather seat, albeit only having seen three MPs in this time. [read more]
Another AS-Level politics essay, this time regarding the factors which influence the way people vote. Dating from early 2003, this essay runs to around 1200 words. It’s published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.
Discuss Three Major Factors Which Have Influenced Voting Behaviours
The way in which the media portray politics and policies, a party or individual’s past performance and, and the personality of a leader of a political party are all factors which can greatly influence the way in which individuals vote. It is impossible to absolutely define why people vote the way they do, but there are a number of factors which can be pointed to which have an affect on voting behaviour. [read more]