Intro to British Politics Flashcards

Key theories for IBP

Jacobs and Hindmoor (2024)

• Labour moves further left for ideological purposes, typically following periods in government; the party moves further right for electoral purposes, typically following long periods in opposition

Hooghe et al. (2002)

• The GAL-TAN (green/alternative/liberal-traditional/authoritarian/nationalist) division of society is perhaps most important in the present day as it more accurately covers the progressive vs conservative social cleavage that dominates most of modern debate

Sobolewska and Ford (2020)

• Changing electorate: far more people have undergraduate degrees compared to the past

• More graduates and ethnic minorities vote Labour than white school leavers, a reversal of historic demographics

Gamble (1974)

• The post-war consensus was generally accepted by the Conservatives, who believed that “the state sector was to be administered, not dismantled”

• Thatcherism is about having the free economy and a strong state

Green (2002) and Clarke (2016)

• There is debate among scholars as to how fundamental Thatcher’s changes to the Conservatives were: Green argues that she led to the end of the party being a bastion of ‘conservatism’, while Clarke argues that she was far more pragmatic than the ideologue she is often portrayed as

Ford et al. (2021)

• Study of demographics in the 2019 General Election

• Finds trends which indicate shifting demographics in the Conservative vote: fewer people with no qualification, increasingly old voters

2024 voting trends

• Degree-holders were proportionally most likely to vote Labour; non-degree-holders still mostly voted Labour (because they won the election) but by a much smaller margain with Conservatives and Reform

Lipset and Rokkan (1967)

• The party systems of the 1960s reflect the cleavage structures of the 1920s

Duverger’s Law

• Majoritarian single-member district electoral systems tend to lead to two-party systems

• Many votes are considered wasted

• For parties, this leads to broad coalitions being formed

• For voters, this prevents people from voting how they really feel

Different views of UK party system

• Dunleavy (2005): Multiparty system

• Heffernan (2003): Two-party-plus

• Quinn (2013): Alternating predominance

• Lynch (2007): Two-party system in multi-level polity

Dalton (1998)

• “Parties without partisans”

Valgarðsson et al. (2025)

• Global trend of declining trust in political institutions and institutions; increasing voter apathy; declining turnouts