Attitudes to voting rules and electoral system preferences: Evidence from the 1999 and 2003 Scottish Parliament elections

Researchers have paid little attention to the way citizens evaluate different electoral systems. This reflects the limited knowledge citizens are presumed to have about alternative electoral arrangements. However, the establishment of a legislature under new electoral rules creates conditions in which citizens can make more informed judgements. Such a situation occurred with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, elected under the Additional Member system. Using data collected in 1999 and 2003, we consider Scottish voters’ reactions to the new electoral rules. We examine how voters evaluated various features and outcomes of the rules, the structure of voters’ attitudes, and which features and outcomes of the rules were decisive in shaping overall support for plurality and proportional voting systems.     

Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain

Analysis of patterns of participation revealed three dimensions of civic activism in modern Britain: individualistic activism; contact activism; and collective activism. Three alternative theories of participation were examined to account for these dimensions: general incentives; social capital; and civic voluntarism. None proved sufficient in itself to account for civic activism in modern Britain: each provided only part of the explanation.     

Thatcherism and the Conservative Party

Neither spatial models of party competition nor the 'Westminster' model of British politics explain the phenomenon of Thatcherism. One explanation of its success, examined by Crewe and Searing, suggests that Mrs Thatcher sought to convert the Conservative party and the wider electorate to her distinctive brand of liberal Whiggism and traditional Toryism. They found little evidence of the success of this, however, among the British electorate as a whole. In this paper, data from the first national survey of Conservative party members demonstrates that she had little success in converting the Conservative party to these ideas either, although she did have a secure ideological base within the party. The results also suggest that her successor, John Major, has a rather different support base within the party from that of Mrs Thatcher. The implications of these findings for spatial models of party competition and the Westminster model of British politics are discussed.