Journal Articles

Has the British Public Depolarized Along With Political Elites? An American Perspective on British Public Opinion

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In contrast to the growing elite policy polarization in the United States, the British Labour and Conservative Parties have converged dramatically on economic and social welfare policy over the past two decades. The authors ask the following question: Has there been a parallel depolarization in the British mass public’s policy attitudes and partisan loyalties, pointing to a general mechanism that extends beyond the U.S. case? The authors report analyses of election survey data from 1987 to 2001 that document significant declines in the association between British citizens’ policy positions and their partisanship (partisan sorting). However, they find only modest changes in the dispersion of British respondents’ self-placements on the policy scales (policy extremity) and in mass attitude constraint, defined as the correlations between citizens’ positions across different policy issues. These trends in the British public’s policy preferences and partisan loyalties are mirror images of the trends in the American public’s policy preferences and mass partisanship.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Comparative Political Studies

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oak : sage publisher., 2012

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

00104140

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Vol. 45 no. 4, April 2012, pp. 507-530

Subject(s)

Elections
Public opinion
Representation
polarization
Britain
Has the British Public Depolarized
Depolarization

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