(5) Political Participation

Is there a crises?
1. UK General Election
  1. In the period from 1945 to 1992, the average turnout reaimed above 75% and in 1950 there was a post war high of 84%
  2. In 1997 labour victory 71% voted but half a million fewer votes than john 1992 election victory
  3. 2001 general election recored 59%, the lowest figure since 1918
  4. 2005 turnout rose marginally to 61%, party due to the postal vote, the second lowest turnout since 1918
  5. In 2010 turnout was 65% and occurred dispite the closeness of the contest and the first use of televised leaders' debates
2. membership of the UK's main political partes
  1. Labour Party membership has fallen from more than 1 million in the mid 1950's to around 166,000 in 2009
  2. Conservative Party membership has fallen from an estimated 2.8 million in the mid -1950's to around 250,000 in 2009
  3. in 2007 1% of people belonged to a politicla party down from 7 percent some 50 years before
3. There was also been a decline in voters' loyalty towards political party and the extent to which they 'identify' with them
  1. the voters have been more partisan dealignment. There has been a shift from regular and habitual voting pattens in the UK to more volatile and less predictable ones.
4. There may justed be a shift from one kind of participation to another
  1. There has been an upsurge of interest in pressure-groups politics and protest movments
Explain decline participation
1. Blame the public
  1. 'SOCIAL CAPITAL' has declined
    1. The level of trust and sense of social connectedness that help to promote stability, cohesion and properit; that turns the 'I' into 'we'
    2. People are more concerned about themselves and their family and frien, and less concerned about the larger society
  2. This is certainly by the fact that in rent years almost all mature democracies have, to a greater or lesser extent, experienced diffiulites in mobilizing their electorates
2. Blame the media
  1. The mass media is sometimes charged with having created a climate of cynicism amongst the public, leading to a growing popular disen-chantment with politics generally, and a lack of trust in goverment and politicians of all complexions
  2. UK most advanced example of 'culture of contempt'
    1. This has occurred becasue there are intense commercial pressures have forced the media to make their coverage of politics 'sexy' an dattention - grabbing.
      1. Scandals, incompetence, policy failure are focus on more than political debate and policy analysis
3. Blame the politians
  1. Lack of vision
    1. It is often argued that modern politicians and political parties now believe in nothing except getting elected
    2. Politics has become an end in itself, and being a politicians has become just another professional career
    3. Modern politicians lack vision, a sense of moral purpose and direction
  2. Lack of choice
    1. Interest in politics generally, and in voting in particular may be influenced by political and ideological divide between the major parties
    2. 'Consensus politics' - this happened as both the Labour and conservative parties have distanced themselves from their traditional ideologies and increasingly respond to the same group of 'Middle England' voters
  3. Electoral strategies
    1. The growing tendency for political parties to 'target' key voters and key seats in an election may also have contributed to declining overall levels of turnout
  4. Age of 'spin'
    1. One of the consequences of the modern media - obsessed age is that politicians have become over-concerned about communication ans news management
    2. This is reflected in the growth of the so-called 'SPIN'.
      1. A biased portrayal of an event or information designed to elicit a favourable or unfavourable response
      2. Modern politics is therefore all about presentation - how things appear, not how they are
        This creates the impression that politicians are less trustworthy, more willing to be 'economical with the truth'

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(5) Political Participation

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	Erstellt von Marcus Danvers vor etwa 11 Jahre