‘Decade of Dealignment’

This chapter concerns the British general elections of February 1974, October 1974, and 1979 during what came to be known as the ‘Decade of Dealignment’. The first two contests were closely fought, resulting in no overall majority (February 1974) and a slender Labour majority (October 1974). However, the resulting Labour governments were beset by severe economic problems, leading some commentators to claim that Britain had become ‘ungovernable’. In the 1979 general election the Conservatives returned to office under a leader (Margaret Thatcher) who was determined to reverse the country’s post-war decline. In each case, relevant developments in the preceding inter-election period are described (including trends in party popularity) and an account of the campaign provided. In addition, the election results themselves—patterns of party support and of turnout—are extensively analysed. The chapter also focuses on three areas investigated by researchers at the time—explanations for non-voting, the sources of support for the Liberal Party, and the rise of ‘issue voting’.

Rethinking Political Wellbeing in Representational Democracy in Japan

This study discusses how representational democracy is related to the issues of community wellbeing in that political promises are contested in process of election campaigns. Under the premises that many promises largely reflect issue of community wellbeing, we seek to enhance understanding of how styles of representative democracy impact community wellbeing by comparing aspects of single-member (SMD) and multimember districts (MMD) in the Japan case.Among the questions considered: (1) Do voters’ choices increase in SMD compared to MMD systems? (2) Does issue voting increase in SMD? (3) Do SMD systems expand policy debate? and, (4) Does the voters’ will determine the policies of elected representatives? We measure each of these variables, related to mechanisms for electing representatives, with an assumption that wellbeing is closely related to voters’ participation and satisfaction. Based on our analysis, we conclude that SMD is not better than MMD at promoting these aspects of community wellbeing.

Issue Voting and Government Responsiveness to Policy Preferences

Does citizens’ voting behavior influence government policy? Conventional models of democratic representation assume that issue voting by citizens induces government responsiveness to citizens’ preferences. However, existing research has not tested whether voting behavior makes any difference to responsiveness. We present a theoretical model of issue voting and policy responsiveness. We leverage Swedish election study panels and a corresponding dataset on policy implementation to empirically evaluate the influence of issue voting on the adoption by governments of popular policies. We find that parties that enter government are more likely to implement popular policies if supporters of a policy shift their votes towards those parties. Thus, issue voting can lead to government responsiveness as long as it does not force parties to be inconsistent with their prior positions.