This task links to the Course Assessment Specification (CAS): Theories of voting behaviour - rational choice model.

The rational choice model of voting behaviour is concerned with the way in which people may vote based on their own rational self-interest.

It treats voters as consumers who are choosing a party based on who they think will best improve their circumstances.

One of the key factors in this will be perceptions voters have about the economic competence of a political party which may include issues such as taxation rates and the ability to deal with the deficit.

For example, the Conservatives were seen as being more capable in dealing with public finances in the 2015 election than Labour.

This was one of the key factors that was attributed to the success of the Conservatives in winning this election.

This theory of voting behaviour focuses more on short-term factors, such as the economy.

The rational choice model tends to be more prevalent in countries where the electorate are more educated and have access to a wide range of media outlets.

Some psephologists argue that those who adhere to the rational choice model are more knowledgeable of issues and less likely to be influenced by family or other social networks.

This model is based on the idea that people will vote for who is most likely to make them better off. The state of the economy is one of the most important factors when looking at the rational choice model. The economy is a short-term factor as it changes from election to election. If the economy is doing well, it would be rational to vote for the party who is in charge when the economy is doing well.

Politicians have used this to their advantage. Both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were accused of making a pre-election boom. If people have more money in their pockets and businesses are confident in the government keeping employment steady then people are more likely to vote for the incumbent to keep the economy going well. 

The rational choice model of voting behaviour assumes that people are motivated by money and by the possibility of making profit, and this has allowed it to construct formal, and often predictive models of human behaviour.

It is believed that as a result of this theory of voting behaviour political parties must work harder to secure modern voters' support as people are becoming less attached to certain political parties ensuring more ‘floating voters’.

Rational choice relates to the extent to which the role of judgment is placed on an individual to make a rational judgment on what party they should vote for. It could be argued that this model of voting is rather relevant as people commonly vote for parties that best suit them and will benefit them the most.

This model promotes the idea that voting behaviour is influenced by a combination of the party’s track record, election manifesto, the party leaders and key party players.

This means that voters make a decision not based on class, age, ethnicity or gender or party identification but on who will benefit them and their families.

What is interesting to note is that when a voter is younger they may be less motivated to vote for a political party that is focused on elderly care, pensions or childcare provision. They may be more moved to vote for a party with policies that impact their immediate lives, perhaps help to buy property or university tuition fees. As voters become older and more settled in their lives what motivates them to vote for a particular political party, single issue or leader may change as their lives change. This interpretation is clearly a generalisation and of course, young people/women/men/BAME or any 'group' of voters are not homogenous groups.

If a person lives in an area with high levels of unemployment, crime or perceived high numbers of immigrants, these may be the factors that impact the way that they vote. They will be looking for political parties with manifestos that promise to target their perceived issues in their lives. If a person or member(s) of their family works for the NHS, the police or in education, policies that improve working conditions including pay may impact the way someone votes.

The rise of ‘catch all’ parties has led to emphasis on issues, campaigns, leadership and competence. it could be said that this is a good thing forcing politicians to meet the voters needs but it is clear that floating voters and independent voting has become a lot more common. For example, when asked half way through the 2015 UK general election campaign, 34% of voters said that they may change their vote before election day whereas in 1992 only 18% said this showing a large increase. It could be argued that conscious decisions about which party best represents a voter’s interest or which are the main determinant of voting outcomes.

One factor that undermines the rational choice model is the ways in which the media may impact voting behaviour. Citizens learn about politics and government primarily from television, social media and newspapers. These media outlets can influence voters not only through the slant of a particular report, but also merely by choosing which to stories to cover. Therefore perhaps voters in this sense are unable to make rational choices. Recent studies suggest that media exposure can have a sizable impact in shaping the public's political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. However, these studies may have overestimated the impacts of media influence due to individuals' tendency to seek out information that agrees with their pre-existing views.

Overall, the rational choice model of voting behaviour has serious merits, yet some pitfalls. It has been proven time and time again that people vote for what benefits them, yet they cannot make a rational choice based on biased information. Therefore, while the model is significant, it relies on an unbiased mass media and/or a politically aware population.

Your task is to watch the Channel 4 News report made ahead of the 2017 General Election. It was filmed in Redcar, in the heart of the Tees Valley, where unemployment is well above the national average. The reporter visits groups of working people and those that are unemployed asking them what the election is all about for them.

What key issues do the people claim influence their voting behaviour?

Are all of those interviewed motivated to vote according to the rational choice model?

Write your response and upload it to your student folder.

This task links to the Course Assessment Specification (CAS): Theories of voting behaviour - sociological model.

The Sociological model is a model based on the psychological attachment that people have to political parties. 

Pulzer (1967), claimed: 'Class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail.'

Traditionally then, political sociologists have identified social class as the most important factor associated with voting behaviour. This is hardly surprising given that one of the major political parties - Labour - was founded upon a commitment to a class, and whose origins lie in the organised trade union movement.

The sociological model of voting behaviour, associated with Butler and Stokes, was based on the consistent finding that social class was the most accurate indicator of likely voting intention. In general, working class voters did vote for the Labour Party, and middle class voters voted Conservative. Usually, about two-thirds of the working class voted Labour, while four-fifths of the middle class voted Conservative.

The sociological (Columbia) school emphasised the group basis of voting. It highlights the fact that although individuals make personal decisions, these decisions cannot be entirely isolated from the other factors, such as social status and friends. Lazarsfeld, Berelson and McPhee (1954) particularly emphasise the role of the family and the political socialisation in influencing voting behaviour. Political socialisation is the transfer of the political culture, values and norms of the new generations in a given society (Almond and Verba 1963). Although it is most intensive in childhood, the political socialization is a process that includes the entire lifetime of the social actors. Attitudes about politics are mainly formed in the childhood According to the proponents of the sociological theory of voting, with the pre-election campaigns the attitudes of the citizens about certain political ideologies, parties and leaders do not change, rather they only strengthen. 

The family is the source of most affiliations such as the social status and families usually show similarities in voting. Glass (1986) is convinced that it is exactly the family through the relation between the parent and the child that has an important influence in the political orientation of voters. The basic values that determine the political life of citizens are learned within the family, as well as the identification with a given political party and the loyalty to this party. However, although family can be relevant in shaping the core values of the citizen, when he or she is still a child, as the social actor grows older, he/she may develop their own political views that are different from those of their parents. Furthermore, this model does not take into consideration that there may be conflict within the social groups. it may be the case that in defiance of family members, one might vote against their social norms.

Friends are an important factor in the political socialisation. Through the conversation that is led in the circle of friends, usually a dominant political opinion is imposed and maintained, which is shared by the members of the group.

According to the sociological theory, the media most commonly strengthen the attitudes which voters have before the beginning of a general election campaign. Hence, it is considered that the influence of media on the voting decision of citizens is minimal.

Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet (1954) emphasise certain social characteristics of voters such as: class, religion, race and establish a connection between them and the voting for a certain political party. The voting for a certain political party is a type of social activity and the citizens cannot be removed from their social origin when deciding for who they will give their vote.

According to the sociological theory, politics is based on social cleavage. In this manner politics is a matter of group interests. This concept of social cleavages was promoted in the sixties of the twentieth century by Lipset and Rokkan (1967), Rokkan (1970).

It was the case in pre-1980s Britain that people tended to vote along class lines. This is known as ‘class alignment’. ABC1s would vote for the Conservative Party and C2DE tended to vote Labour.

There is evidence (post-1980s) of class-dealignment where the electorate no longer vote along rigid class lines. The Independent reported in October 2018 that one of the most remarkable features of the 2017 general election was that Labour could no longer be described as a predominantly working-class party. In the 2017 election there was hardly any class difference between Labour and Conservative voters.

This is significant as it shows while historically class was an important determiner of voting behaviour, this is no longer the case, perhaps because people do not identify so closely with social class as they used to.

Ipsos MORI found that in the 2017 general election, the middle classes swung to Labour, while working classes swung to the Conservatives. Although the Conservatives maintained a six-point lead among ABC1s, Labour increased its vote share among this group by 12 points since 2015.

This is significant as it supports the view that the electorate are no longer motivated by class alignment and traditional expectations that middle classes will vote for more right-wing political parties with the working classes more likely to vote for left-wing political parties. 

A survey published by BMG Research in 2018, found that in 2017, instead of class identity, identities based on values are “highly predictive” of how people vote. The electorate may make a decision to vote for a particular party based on single issues, such as the ban on fox hunting or Tim Farron’s views on same-sex relationships. This is important as it shows that people may not be driven by class but by issues that transcend income levels or employment status.

This would mean that today people are more motivated by their social, economic or religious values than by class alignment.  

When we consider that in 2014, YouGov asked people whether they regarded themselves as “working class”, “middle class” or “upper class”, nine million ABC1 adults said that they considered themselves to be working class, while five million C2DE adults said that they were middle class. This is significant as it shows that people may not really understand the Ipsos MORI classification of people by employment status and therefore it becomes increasingly difficult to comment categorically that class has a tangible role to play in measuring voting behaviour. When political researchers use one classification model to measure voting behaviour and the electorate another driven perhaps by aspiration or income level, it is almost impossible to determine the true impact that class has on voting behaviour.

The term ‘class’ is emotive and riven with ideals that it has taken on a meaning that only really pertains to the individual and therefore is not truly measurable. 

YouGov claims that “the class divide in British politics seems to have closed and it is no longer a very good indicator of voting intention”. It seems that the electorate no longer identifies itself so strongly with class as it did pre-1980s. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, claimed that the reason why people no longer identify so strongly with class is that in order to achieve election success, political parties need to appeal to a broad demographic rather than pitting its hopes on one section of society.

Curtice commented that “It's perfectly obvious why the Labour Party should have wanted to change its class image because the one thing that has undoubtedly has changed about class in Britain is the size of the classes…and the working class, which is traditionally associated with the Labour vote, has become the smaller of the classes”.

This is significant as it shows that political parties need to ensure that their message touches a wide range of voters and is relatively centrist so as to appeal to the majority of the electorate. If people vote along single issue lines before their class, it seems obvious that political parties must adapt their message to suit. Therefore, while historically the Conservative Party would have targeted their low-income tax policies towards the wealthy and Labour would have simply focused on the rights of workers, political pragmatism means that this is no longer the case.

Ipsos MORI reported that in the EU Referendum of 2016, age and class both had an effect on voting behaviour. A majority of 18-34 year olds in every social class voted to remain, while a majority of those aged 55+ in every class voted to leave. But within each age group the middle-classes were more likely to vote to remain, and the working classes more likely to vote to leave, and within each class younger people were more likely to vote remain, and older people more likely to vote to leave. The crossover point was among the middle-aged: middle-class 35-54 year olds voted to stay, working class 35-54 year olds voted to leave.

This is significant as it shows a direct correlation between age and class in relation to the Brexit vote. It would seem that among younger people of all classes, ‘remain’ was the favoured option, whereas for older people of all classes, leave was favoured. That said, it would seem that there was overwhelming support for remain among middle classes while the working classes voted to leave. This shows that there is a direct link between class and voting behaviour within the 2016 Referendum.

There are limitations to this model of voting behaviour. These include:

1. Its inability to explain partisan (party) de-alignment.
2. The over emphasis on the utility of social class as an indicator of voting behaviour.
3. A failure to appreciate the significance of individual policy preferences and assessment of government performance on voting.

Your first task is to watch the video above and write a response to the questions in the comments below:

Does the YouGov electoral data from the 2017 General Election identify the relevance of the sociological model of voting? Give your reasons.

Your second task is to access the Ipsos MORI data on voting behaviour in the 2019 General Election. You can find this data in the pdf attached to the top of this post. What conclusions can you draw about the relevance of the sociological model of voting behaviour in this election? Give statistical examples.

This task links to the Course Assessment Specification (CAS): Theories of voting behaviour - party identification model.

Party identification is a long-term, affective attachment to one’s preferred political party. Research finds that these party identities are a potent cue in guiding the attitudes and behavior of the average person. Partisans tend to repeatedly support their preferred party, even when the candidates and the issues change. Party ties mobilise people to vote to support their party, and to work for the party during the campaign. And given the limited information most people have about complex political issues, party ties provide a cue to what positions one should support. 

Research has found that many people began the campaign with their decision already made. People often attributed their votes to long-established family traditions, or positions they had held across many elections. These partisan ties are similar to identifications with a social class, religious denomination, or other social group. There is a cross-over with the sociological model of voting in this sense. Social class and family are key drivers of voting behaviour for both the party-identification and sociological models.

Partisanship means that a voter has a predisposition to support his or her preferred party. Partisanship has been described as the basis for a “normal vote”—the vote expected when other factors in the election are evenly balanced. If other factors come into play, such as issue positions or candidate images, their influence can be measured by the change in preferences from initial partisan predispositions. For the unsophisticated voter, a long-term partisan loyalty and repeated experience with one’s preferred party provides a clear and low-cost cue for voting. Even for the sophisticated citizen, a candidate’s party affiliation normally signifies a policy program that serves as the basis for reasonable electoral choice.

Psephologists demonstrated that from the 1950s to the early 1970s voting behaviour was clearly correlated with a range of social variables including social class, age, gender, region, religion and ethnicity and that social class was the most significant influence on voting behaviour which enabled P.G.J. Pulzer to write in Political Representation and Election (1967) that "Class is the basis of British party policies: all else is embellishment and detail", a conclusion which was endorsed fully by David Butler and Donald Stokes in their famous study "Political Change in Britain” (1974).

The vast majority of British voters [approximately 90% of respondents in Butler and Stokes' surveys] stated that they did identify with either the Conservative Party, the Labour Party or, to a lesser extent the Liberal Party and the respondents' party identifications usually remained relatively stable over the course of several elections and often throughout voters' lives sometimes hardening with age.

The link between voting behaviour and social class was at its strongest in the General Elections of 1950 and 1951 when approx. 2/3 of working class voters voted Labour and 1/3 Tory, while approx 3/4 of the middle class voted Tory and 1/5 Labour. Class voting remained fairly high throughout the 1960s while support for the Liberals was very low and fairly evenly distributed across the social classes, although with a slight middle class bias.

But why did so many voters vote in accordance with their social class position between 1945-1970?

Butler and Stokes argued that most voters had only limited knowledge and understanding of key political issues of the early 1960s such as the state of the UK economy or the desirability of otherwise of UK entry into the EEC, as it then was; they could only rarely describe in any detail the policy differences between the political parties; and their political opinions were often ideologically inconsistent in the sense that they could only rarely be combined into composite ideological positions which were recognisably "left wing" or "right wing" or "centrist."

Therefore for most but not all voters the voting decision could not be explained as an individual response to perceived differences in party policies. Instead voting decisions could be better explained via the influences of long term social structural factors: it is in this sense that the Party Identification model came to be described as a sociological model of voting behaviour [as distinct from the more individualistic models of voting behaviour which were developed from the 1970s onwards. However Butler and Stokes did not deny totally the influences on voting behaviour of short term and medium issues, policies and events but these were considered to be much less influential than long term social structural factors.

Butler and Stokes argued that voters were heavily influenced by long term processes of political socialisation especially in the family but also in the work place and the wider community which presented them with generalised broad images of the political parties. Thus Labour might be presented as the party of the disadvantaged, of the trade unions, of the working class of nationalisation or of the welfare state while the Conservative Party might be presented as the party of private enterprise, of private property and the nation as a whole.

There were also, obviously important social class differences in these processes of political socialisation in which working class people and middle class people to identify especially with the Labour Party and the Conservative Party respectively and to vote accordingly. [Within these class differentiated socialisation processes members of each social class would be provided both with positive images of "their party" and negative images of opposing parties].

Given their relatively large numbers if all working class voters had voted Labour between 1945 and 1970 Labour would have won every single general election. However a substantial minority of working class voters voted Tory, and also a smaller, but still substantial minority of middle class voters voted Labour, even at the high point of class voting in the General Elections of 1950 and 1951. These cross-class voters, given their relatively small numbers, were described as "deviant" voters and various explanations were suggested to explain their deviant voting patterns.

Although we can agree with the already mentioned statement from P.G.J. Pulzer in Political Representation and Election (1967) that in relation to the period between 1945 and 1970 "Class is the basis of British party policies: all else is embellishment and detail", it is also necessary to investigate the effects of other social factors [ age, gender, region, religion and ethnicity] on voting behaviour in the period 1945-1970.

A Summary of the Party Identification Model of Voting Behaviour.

• The Party identification suggests that voters decisions are influenced much more by social structural variables [and especially by their social class position but also by their age, gender, region, religion and ethnicity] than by short term issues, policies and events.
• Differing social class positions result in class differences in political socialisation processes operating in the family, the work place and the wider community.
• Class differences in political socialisaton processes result in the transmission of differing broad party images which encourage working class and middle class people to identify mainly with the Labour Party or the Conservative Party respectively.
• Most voters vote in accordance with their party identification.

The Decline of Party Identification or Partisan Dealignment :

Psephologists have emphasised the extent to which Party Identification [which was so central to the explanation of voting behaviour in Butler and Stokes' Party Identification Model] declined significantly especially in the 1970s. It is generally agreed that since then overall party identification has changed little although there has been further long term decline in the extent of strong party identification.

The move away from voting according to class could also be due to a change in the size of the classes. Since the 1970s, the number of manual workers has fallen from nearly 50% of the population to just 33%. This is because of the changes in employment patterns, educational opportunities and the rising standard of living.

However, although it appears that voters are moving away from their natural class, statistics suggest that voting behaviour and class are still linked to some extent. In 2001, the highest social class, AB, voted 40% in favour of the Conservatives - less than in previous elections, but still a strong vote. Almost half of the working classes still voted Labour. The transfer of working class votes to Conservative and upper class votes to Labour might also be due to the fact that New Labour policies are moving further to the right. Although the elections in 1997 and 2001 saw Labour regaining C1 and C2 voters, this trend may be attributed to the collapse of the Conservative Party. It is said that opposition parties do not win elections; governments lose them.

In the 2010 General Election the Conservatives gained from all groups with the exception of the lowest class DE which stayed Labour. ABC1 (grouped together) had a 39% vote for the Conservatives while Labour had 27%. In the C2 class 37% voted Conservative compared to 29% for Labour, and in the DE group 31% voted Conservative and 40% Labour.

Your task is to watch the news report above in which people from Darlington are being interviewed about their voting intentions the day before the December 2019 General Election. Does this report show that the party identification model was relevant in this election?

You are now going to attempt the following question:

Analyse the relevance of the Rational Choice model in explaining voting behaviour.

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You are now going to attempt to write a response to the following question:

To what extent is the rational choice model more relevant in explaining voting behaviour than other models in the UK today? 

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