Abstract
This chapter tackles the question: how engaged with political democracy are the citizens of the UK? Drawing on a survey designed for this research project, the chapter explores intention to vote, political action undertaken by individuals, satisfaction with democracy, sources of political information and broader political understanding. The chapter reveals a general openness to further debate about how the UK is governed and highlights interesting social differentiations.
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Notes
- 1.
Tom Devine, Independence or Union (London: Allen Lane, 2016), pp. 242–245 (Devine 2016).
- 2.
Tak Wing Chan and Matthew Clayton, ‘Should the Voting Age be Lowered to Sixteen? Normative and Empirical Considerations’, Political Studies, 54:3 (2006), pp. 533–558 (Chan and Clayton 2006).
- 3.
Bernard Crick, ‘The Presuppositions of Citizenship Education’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 33:3 (1999), pp. 337–352 (Crick 1999).
- 4.
John Curtice, ‘Has the Referendum Campaign Made a Difference?’, What Scotland Thinks (2014), at http://www.scotcen.org.uk/media/563071/ssa-2014-has-the-referendun-campaign-made-a-difference.pdf (accessed 31 October 2016) (Curtice 2014).
- 5.
Lord Ashcroft, ‘EU Referendum: “How Did You Vote” Poll’, 2016, at http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/How-the-UK-voted-Full-tables-1.pdf, calculated from table 64 (accessed 31 October 2016) (Ashcroft 2016).
- 6.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963) (Almond and Verba 1963).
- 7.
Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, p. 3.
- 8.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) (Inglehart and Welzel 2005); Max Kaase and Alan Marsh, ‘Political Action Repertory: Changes Over Time and a New Typology’, in Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase (eds.), Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979) (Kaase and Marsh 1979); Hans-Dieter Klingemann, ‘Dissatisfied Democrats: Democratic Maturation in Old and New Democracies’, in Russell Dalton and Christian Welzel (eds.), The Civic Culture Transformed: From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) (Klingemann 2013).
- 9.
The question was: ‘Please think of a scale that runs from 0 to 10, where 0 means very unlikely and 10 means very likely, how likely is it that you will vote in the 2015 general election?’ Those not eligible to vote were defined to be people who, in answer to the question ‘are you eligible to vote in this election’, chose one of the options: ‘No, because I am a citizen of another country and am not allowed to vote’, ‘No, because I am not 18 years old at the time of the election’, or ‘No, for another reason’. People who chose the option ‘No, because I have not registered to vote’ are defined here to be eligible to vote, because registration remained open until 20 April, more than two months after our fieldwork. See Electoral Commission, The May 2015 UK Elections (London: Electoral Commission 2015), p. 34 (Electoral Commission 2015).
- 10.
Electoral Commission, May 2015, p. 3.
- 11.
The question wording was: ‘On the whole are you very satisfied, rather satisfied, rather dissatisfied or very dissatisfied satisfied with the way democracy is developing in Britain?’, and there was a 5-point response scale from ‘very satisfied’ to ‘very dissatisfied’.
- 12.
It should be noted, however, that turnout in the UK’s EU referendum on 23 June 2016 was lower in Scotland (at 67.2%) than in the UK as a whole (at 72.2%).
- 13.
The question was: ‘How much difference do you think changes in how the UK is governed will make to your own life?’.
References
Almond, Gabriel, and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963).
Ashcroft Lord, ‘EU Referendum: “How Did You Vote” Poll’, 2016, at http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/How-the-UK-voted-Full-tables-1.pdf (accessed 31 October 2016).
Chan, Tak Wing, and Matthew Clayton, ‘Should the Voting Age be Lowered to Sixteen? Normative and Empirical Considerations,’ Political Studies 54:3 (2006): 533–558.
Crick, Bernard, ‘The Presuppositions of Citizenship Education,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education 33:3 (1999): 337–352.
Curtice, John, ‘Has the Referendum Campaign Made a Difference?’. What Scotland Thinks (2014) at http://www.scotcen.org.uk/media/563071/ssa-2014-has-the-referendun-campaign-made-a-difference.pdf accessed 31 October 2016.
Devine, Tom, Independence or Union (London: Allen Lane, 2016), 242–245.
Electoral Commission, The May 2015 UK Elections (London: Electoral Commission, 2015), 34.
Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Kaase, Max, and Alan Marsh, ‘Political Action Repertory: Changes Over Time and a New Typology,’ in Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase (eds.), Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979).
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, ‘Dissatisfied Democrats: Democratic Maturation in Old and New Democracies,’ in Russell Dalton and Christian Welzel (eds.), The Civic Culture Transformed: From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
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Kenealy, D., Eichhorn, J., Parry, R., Paterson, L., Remond, A. (2017). Political Engagement. In: Publics, Elites and Constitutional Change in the UK. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52818-2_2
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