Giving civil society a boost: a progressive path to the ‘shared society’

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister spoke about her ‘shared society’ vision. But a slogan itself will not shift us closer to a genuinely progressive civil society. Dan Corry and Gerry Stoker set out a programme of reform and explain how it could really change the way British society works

Anti-politics after 23 June: how bad will the hangover be the morning after?

Disaffection with politics and politicians has been on the rise since World War II. Will Jennings and Gerry Stoker discuss how this trend of negativity has fed in to the campaign to leave the EU, and write that while a remain victory may stem some of the immediate pressures on the British economy and state, it also has the potential to add to the mood of discontent

Behavioural science and the response to COVID-19: a missed opportunity?

While the role of behavioural science in the UK’s handling of the pandemic has been criticised, Peter John and Gerry Stoker argue that it is important for governments to try and influence citizens’ behaviour rather than rely on laws that are harder to enforce. They nevertheless explain why a different ‘nudging’ approach ought to have been used in this case

Improving the political judgement of citizens:Why the task environment matters

Internal political efficacy (that is, beliefs about one’s ability to process and participate effectively in politics) is known to be shaped by factors such as levels of interest in politics, trust in institutions and awareness of political developments and debates. In this article, we show that the task environment also has an impact on internal political efficacy, and that little research has been done on this issue. We draw on data from focus groups in Australia, where citizens were asked to make political judgements in contrasting task environments: state elections and the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite. We examine four features of task environments: framing choice; issue content; the nature of available cues; and whether the task environment stimulates cognitive effort. We conclude that concerns about the internal political efficacy of voters should be addressed by exploring how the task environment created for political choice might be made more amenable in order to improve the political judgement of citizens

Centralised or multi-level: which governance systems are having a ‘good’ pandemic?

Using Switzerland and England’s responses to COVID-19, Jen Gaskell and Gerry Stoker explain how decentralised capacity, combined with a constructive relationship at different levels of governance, may result in a more effective strategy during a crisis

Covid-19 has revealed our governance system lacks capacity, but will we do anything about it?

COVID-19 has revealed that UK governance is not just prone to the occasional disaster, it is fundamentally flawed. Gerry Stoker, Will Jennings, and Jen Gaskell outline some of these failings and argue that the pandemic should be followed by a public inquiry into the system

The decline in diffuse support for national politics: the long view on political discontent in Britain

This research note considers how to track long-term trajectories of political discontent in Britain. Many accounts are confined to using either survey data drawn from recent decades or imperfect behavioral measures such as voting or party membership as indicators of political disengagement. We instead develop an approach that provides the long view on political disaffection. We first consider time-series data available from repeated survey measures. We next replicate historic survey questions to observe change in public opinion relative to earlier points in time. Finally, we use Stimson’s (1991) dyad-ratios algorithm to construct an over-time index of political discontent that combines data from multiple poll series. This reveals rising levels of political discontent for both specific and diffuse measures of mass opinion. Our method and findings offer insights into the rising tide of disillusionment afflicting many contemporary democracies

Golden age, apathy or stealth? Democratic engagement in Britain, 1945–1950

This article revisits democratic engagement in post-war Britain in a context of debates about political disaffection in the current period. The study systematically reanalysed volunteer writing in the Mass Observation Archive and represents a significant methodological advance on previous studies. Little evidence was found to support common existing interpretations: whether ‘golden age’ narratives of deference to authority, partisan alignment and high voter turnout or revisionist accounts of apathy. Instead, evidence was found of something akin to what Hibbing and Theiss-Morse call ‘stealth democracy’. Citizens thought democracy to be important and felt a duty to vote, but wished for government by experts in the national interest. This ‘stealth’ interpretation builds on existing studies of duty, populism and expertise in twentieth-century Britain. It helps to move discussion of democratic engagement after the Second World War beyond the binaries of self/collective and private/public, and to explain the paradox of high voter turnout in a context of hostility to party politics. It also promises to inform debates about declining political support in the current period

Audit of Political Engagement 9. The 2012 Report: Part Two The media and politics

The Audit of Political Engagement is the only annual health check on our democratic system. Now in its ninth year, each Audit measures the ‘political pulse’ of the nation, providing a unique benchmark to gauge public opinion across Great Britain with regard to the political system. The second part of this year’s Audit focuses on public attitudes to politics and the media. The media claim to play a critical role in our democracy, shining a bright light on those in power on behalf of the public. But in the context of that place in our democracy, what role and responsibilities, if any, do they have in relation to political engagement? This report is an invaluable source of information and debate for all those who are concerned with the health of our democratic system