I believe there is a crisis of participation in politics within the United Kingdom (UK), but in order to reinforce the matter, it is important to understand and conceptualize the various definitions of political participation. Conge et al., (1988) defines the concept as “all voluntary activities by individual citizens intended to influence either directly or indirectly political choices at various levels of the political system”. Moreover, Whiteley (2012) defines the ideology as “the heart of democratic government and civil society, and without it there can be no effective democracy”. The UK is a democratic state that uses electoral voter turnouts, which take place every 5 years (Johnson and Stoskopf, 2010) as its main measurement of political participation. Therefore, the level of electoral turnout identifies as a significant indication of the well-being of the democratic system. Over the past decade, there have been concerns from policymakers that the percentage of public voting in general elections has reached new lows since universal voting was introduced in the UK.
In democracies such as the UK, voters elect a government to regulate their collective ideas and opinions. Voters essentially influence the decisions that governments make by choosing certain officials or parties and putting them in power. It could be debated that the UK is suffering from a ‘political participation crisis’ where the public, in particular young people aged 18-24-years old, are becoming increasingly disengaged from political processes and democratic institutions. I believe that there is a crisis of participation in UK politics and in this essay, I will argue the reasons as to why this is the case.
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Currently, the methods to vote are via post, proxy (getting someone else to vote for you) or in person at a polling station but in order to participate in the UK, the citizen must follow a certain criterion: 1) be registered to vote; 2) over the age of 18; 3) a British, Irish or a qualifying Commonwealth citizen; 4) a resident within the UK and not be legally excluded from voting.
Over the last decade, the electoral turnout has taken an unforeseen turn, starting from the general election of 2001 where only 59% of the eligible electorates voted (House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, 2014). While the voter turnout at the following general elections increased to “61% in 2005, to 65% in 2010” (Henn and Foard, 2011), these statistics should be evaluated with the previous general election outcomes where electoral participation was “75% in 1987, 78% in 1992, and 71% in 1997” (UK Political Info, 2017). A reason for this great difference could be assessed through the lack of engagement from young people in the UK.
A lack of engagement is usually aimed at the younger generations between the ages of 18-24-years-old. Young people are more dissatisfied in the political process compared to their older contemporaries (Kimberlee, 2002). Furthermore, young people in the UK seem less likely to participate in general elections compared to their older contemporaries (Pattie et al., 2004). According to the Electoral Commission (2002), only 39% of eligible 18-24-year-olds voted at the 2001 General Election and had increased to 44% in 2010 (Ipsos MORI, 2010). However, this was still below the national average, thus suggesting that a vast majority of this demographic that had registered to vote, decided not to do so.
The reasoning as to why this may be the case can be split into four sections, as stated by Kimberlee (2002). Firstly, there is the ‘youth focused’ ideology, which suggests that a lack of participation is based on the younger demographics age or their background. Secondly, ‘politics focused’ reasoning implies that the state itself has excluded young people from politics. Moreover, the explanation of ‘alternative value’ suggests that young people have their own opinions and interests. Therefore, they may be more interested in different political motives than the conventional views that the political parties present. Finally, the concept of ‘generational’ states that individuals experience different journeys in their lives which hinder their knowledge on learning how to vote.
The lack of young people voting leaves a huge proportion of registered voters absent and this could be used as a deciding factor on whether or not certain policies or measures are implemented. For example, in the case of Brexit, the BBC (2018) identified “only 64% of 18-24-year-olds voted” and this goes to show that there was still a large proportion of 36% who did not. Therefore, this demonstrates a barrier of disengagement between the youth and the current political system, thus leading towards a lack of participation within UK politics.
Moreover, a political party membership is another way to measure participation in the political process. However, a passive member can be seen as a supporter of the political movements suggested by that party but does not get involved in the activities. On the other hand, an active member will get involved in many activities.
During the last few years, there has been an increase in people becoming members of some of the smaller political parties. Unfortunately, this has not made much difference for the immense decline in party membership throughout the UK. An article published by Parliament.UK (2012) stated that in the 1950s the Conservative Party and Labor Party had around 2.8 million and 1 million members respectively. Members of trade unions had assigned themselves to parties such as the Labor Party, increasing their members by 5 to 6 million between 1945 to 1990. An updated article from Audickas, Dempsey, and Keen (2018) had published that in April 2018, the Labor Party only had 540,000 members and the Conservative party at 124,000. This is an enormous decline in party membership and can only reinforce the argument of there being a crisis for participation in UK politics.
The decline in party membership within the UK implies that the parties need to reassess how they interact with the public. The current statistics show that the public feel wary about whom they place their trust and faith in and so rather than joining a different political party, they have become disengaged with the political process as a whole. Thus, intensifying the issue of a crisis of participation in UK politics.
Furthermore, in 1986, the proportion of people who trusted in the government to put the needs of the nation first was just under 40%, however, as years went on this declined drastically till 2013 where it was at 18% (House of Commons Library, 2017). It has been found that almost two-thirds of young people are said to have minimal trust in politicians (BBC, 2012) and this ties in with the Ipsos MORI Veracity Index which has ranked politicians at 17% to tell the truth (Skinner and Clemence, 2017). The BBC (2012) recorded that three-quarters of those surveyed had said that political parties did not keep the promises they made once they had been elected. Political trust has been defined as “the degree to which people perceive that government is producing outcomes consistent with their expectations” (Hetherington, 2007).
Henn and Foard (2011) conducted a study which provided many responses to a set of questions about the political parties and professional politicians. The general view stated that the “2011 cohort continues to hold a deep antipathy and distrust towards the political players – and that these feelings are as strongly felt today as they were by the 2002 predecessor cohort” (Henn and Foard, 2011). 23% of respondents agreed that political parties find suitable candidates to run for parliament, whereas 49% certainly felt like this was not the case and that 28% felt unsure (Henn and Foard, 2011). These results showcase a negative view of political parties and professional politicians and thus imply a lack of trust in politics.
Moreover, young people today have hardly any trust or confidence in political parties and professional politicians. A reason for this is that politicians do not keep to their word, for example, when Nick Clegg U-turned on his pledge to abolish tuition fees in 2010 (Sanghani, 2017). Clegg later apologized and said that the party made a promise that they could not keep, and this rattled many voting supporters as demonstrated by the quote of a student “If I had a pound for every lie Nick Clegg told I wouldn't have to take out a student loan” (Sanghani, 2017). The public felt like they were drawn in based on false pretenses.
However, it could be argued that political participation in the UK is not in jeopardy and in fact democracy is simply moving on with the times. It can be agreed that the forms of political engagement and democracy are somewhat outdated and in today’s world there are new alternative ways of participating in politics. It has been established that voter turnouts at elections are seen as the foundation of democracy but there has been a decline in electoral participation. This has come about from the way in which politics has reinvented itself, as appose to the changing performance of the voters. Due to the lack of effort and consistency to follow through with appealing to the public and the absence of political choice, there are other ways to participate in politics, for example, campaigning or petitioning through social media. It can be argued that younger voters are trying to become more politically involved but through other methods such as digital activism. This can be defined as online participation through networked technologies such as social media (Facebook, Twitter) SMS text messaging and online blogs (Joyce, 2010). Social media is becoming a key feature in many lives and so it is difficult to minimize its influence over the public. The internet is an easily accessible tool which allows for opinions on political matters to be shared.
The Pew Research Center (2018A) recorded that 88% of 18-29-years-olds were using social media and a study by Tang and Lee (2013) highlighted that exposure to political information on Facebook has a positive effect on political participation. This is reinforced as 61% of 18-29-year-olds get their political news from Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2018B). Thus, implying that the youth may be reluctant to vote in general elections, but they are still participating through the new era of technology.
On the contrary, two questions arise, firstly, is social media that influential? 43% of 18-34-year-olds have watched politically-related videos online, but for people aged 55 and above, the figure is 15% (Hansard Society, 2019). Moreover, 29% of 18-34-year-olds visited the social media account of a politician or party compared to 12% of those aged 55+ (Hansard Society, 2019). Age is significant in determining whether someone has engaged in politically-related online actions. Secondly, are the youth actively participating? Henn and Foard (2011) conducted a study and found that “61% of respondents considered that they had little or no influence on the decisions that are made on their behalf by the government and politicians”. Therefore, even by keeping up to date with political news, the statistic suggests that the youth are still not being active in politics due to ‘politics focuses’ reasoning by Kimberlee (2002) and add to the crisis of participation in UK politics.
In conclusion, it is quite difficult to assess the crisis situation within the UK due to the fact that electoral voting is regarded as the foundation of democracy within the UK and so its importance is valued a lot more than other participation methods. Although, in my opinion, politics is seen as a collective of ideologies in which different parties utilize to gain the attention and votes from the public in order to attain political power of the state. I believe that there is a crisis of participation within UK politics as demonstrated through this essay. The voter turnouts have fallen greatly and most noticeable during the 2001 general election. Furthermore, the current political system is very unlikely to adapt to the new era of technology and the case of young voters simply becoming absent on election days is likely to continue, unless the state starts to fight for them and recognize that their votes are important in shaping the state for a better tomorrow. The UK appears to be facing some sort of problem, even though there are other methods such as digital activism in place to encourage political participation aside from the standard regime.
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