Speaking at cross-purposes? The rhetorical problems of 'progressive' politics

On 22 January 2009 David Cameron launched the ‘Progressive Conservatism Project’ at Demos, a think tank previously associated with the centre-left. He made clear that he considered this a new departure both for the Conservative Party and for the country. His words were widely interpreted as an attempt to distance the party from Thatcherism and to move towards values more usually associated with the Lib-Lab ‘progressive tradition’ in British politics. This article questions the efficacy of this rhetorical strategy in reorienting voters’ impressions of the Conservative Party. It uses a 2012 YouGov/University of Nottingham survey to show that the word ‘progressive’ is not well understood by the British public. A plurality of survey respondents felt unable to define the word, and those who did tended to use politically neutral terms such as forward-movement, improvement and change. Very few defined it in terms of liberalism, left politics or social justice. Moreover, while many respondents did view Conservative politicians as ‘progressive’, they included Margaret Thatcher within this. The idea of ‘progressive conservatism’ might have seemed attractive to voters in that it signified optimism and change. However, for the majority, it is unlikely to have indicated a shift to the left

2010: Did online polling come of age?

This presentation was given at the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) and British Polling Council joint seminar "The polls in 2010: learning the lessons" on 22nd November 2010

The dimensions and impact of political discontent in Britain

Political discontentment remains a pressing issue for UK parliamentary democracy that needs to be better understood. We offer a range of theoretical perspectives on dimensions of political disaffection and seek to measure them with substantially new survey measures that assess how citizens perceive the performance and motivation of politicians. Our results indicate that the public’s critique of politics and politicians takes a number of different forms, which varies in predictable ways across social groups and according to other political and attitudinal measures. Mainstream parties are ensnared by political discontent but other parties can be beneficiaries of it. We show that discontent is at least as important a driver of Ukip’s support as social, cultural, demographic or economic factor

Flawless campaign, fragile victory: voting in Canada's 2006 Federal Election

Canada's 23rd general election was held on January 23, 2006. Only 20 months earlier, on June 28, 2004, the governing Liberals—in power continuously since 1993—had been reduced to a minority in Parliament, winning 135 of 308 seats and 37% of the popular vote. Minority governments in Canada typically have quite short half-lives, and the Liberal government formed in 2004 was no exception. After narrowly avoiding defeat on its budget bill in May 2005, the government lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on November 28, and Canadians faced the prospect of a winter trek to the polls. And, since the holiday season was fast approaching, Election Day was deferred until late January, making the campaign an atypically long one by Canadian standards. It also proved to be a very exciting one

Austerity and Political Choice in Britain

This is a comprehensive study of the 2015 general election in Britain designed not only for students and scholars of British politics, but also for the interested reader. It looks at the record of the Coalition government both in terms of its plans and performance, particularly in relation to the economy, as the starting point for understanding what happened. The authors go on to examine the campaign during the run-up to polling day and to explain why people voted the way they did. They also take a close look at the various constituency battlegrounds across the country showing how and why voting patterns varied across Britain. Finally, they discuss the implications of the election outcome for the future of the party system and British politics more generally. This book provides important insights into an election which has permanently changed the political geography of Britain

Comprehension by design: Teaching young learners how to comprehend what they read

Teaching learners how to comprehend text remains a largely unsuccessful attempt in our school system. Drawing from the fields of learning sciences, education, instructional design, and performance improvement, we designed, tested, revised, and released to schools and homes an interactive online program that reliably teaches flexible, widely applicable reading comprehension strategies to children. This article describes the analysis and design processes involved in the development of such a program

Serious Games: An Evaluation Framework and Case Study

Serious games show promise as an effective training method, but such games are complex and few guidelines exist for their effective evaluation. We draw on the design science literature to develop a serious game evaluation framework that emphasizes grounding evaluation in each of four key areas-theoretical, technical, empirical, and external. We further recommend that serious game developers assume an iterative, adaptive approach to grounding an evaluation effort in these four areas, emphasizing some areas more than others at different stages of the development cycle. We illustrate our framework using a case study of a large-scale serious game development project. The case study illustrates a holistic approach to serious game evaluation that is valuable to both researchers and practitioners.Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity via the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) [IARPA FA8650-11-C-7178]No embargo.This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]