Political Economy and the Dynamics of Party Support in Contemporary Britain

在过去二十年中，不断变化的知识潮流和现实世界的发展激发了人们对失业和通货膨胀等客观经济条件的影响以及代议制民主国家公众对政党及其领导人的支持的主观经济看法的浓厚兴趣。然而，到目前为止，根本问题仍然没有得到回答，关于经济对政党支持的影响的理论争议和经验分歧仍在继续。该项目通过使用1992-1997年期间在英国收集的每月时间序列数据来测试多变量模型，以解决重要的辩论。主要的理论争议涉及公民的政党支持决定是否基于：1)对个人或国家经济状况的评估，以及与之相关的政府对这些状况的责任归属；2)过去或未来的经济判断，以及与之相关的，愿意分别奖励或惩罚执政党的良好/改善或不良/恶化的经济表现，或根据对不同问题优先事项的看法支持一个政党；3)“冷酷的计算”或对经济信息的情绪反应。同样重要的是，政党认同感作为政党支持的一个组成部分在多大程度上受到正在进行的经济业绩评估的推动。这个项目解决了这样的理论问题和数据限制。就前者而言，研究五年期间英国政党支持的优势在于：1)对政党支持的经济影响应该是巨大的--经济是公众长期关注的问题；2)社会阶层差异可能是对经济状况的反应及其对政党支持的影响；3)多党制有助于研究政党制度背景如何影响政治经济和支持在野党和执政党的动力；4)经济并不都是不断变化的政治事件的组合，一些事件是正在进行的政治进程的一部分，另一些事件是政客和公众都没有预料到的，应该会影响政党支持的短期变动，包括政党认同。这项研究使用了有关经济和政治变量的现有问题的数据，以及英国盖洛普组织进行的月度调查(1992年5月至1997年4月)添加的新问题的数据。通过在60项调查中向现有问题添加问题，这个具有成本效益的项目可以产生关键变量和足够的时间点，用于在本届英国议会的最长宪法任期内对政党支持率进行汇总时间序列分析。这项研究有望大大提高我们对研究的关键问题的理解。

During the past two decades, shifting intellectual currents and real-world developments have stimulated strong interest in the impact of objective economic conditions, such as unemployment and inflation, and subjective economic perceptions on public support for political parties and their leaders in representative democracies. To date, however, fundamental questions remain unanswered, and theoretical controversies and empirical disagreements continue over economic influences on party support. This project addresses important debates by testing multivariate models using monthly time series data to be gathered in Great Britain in the 1992-1997 period. Principal theoretical controversies involve whether citizens' party-support decisions are based on: 1) evaluations of personal or national economic conditions and, relatedly, attributions of government responsibility for such conditions; 2) past or future- oriented economic judgments and, relatedly, willingness to reward or punish governing parties for good/improving or bad/deteriorating economic performance, respectively, or to support a party based on perceptions of different issue priorities; 3) "cold calculations" or emotional reactions to economic information. Also important is the extent to which party identification as a component of party support is driven by ongoing economic performance evaluations. This project addresses such theoretical concerns and data limitations. Regarding the former, the advantages of studying British party support during a five-year period are: 1) economic effects on party support should be substantial - the economy is a matter of longstanding public concern; 2) social-class differences may characterize responses to economic conditions and their impact on party support; 3) the multiparty system facilitates studying how party-system context influences the political economy and dynamics of support for opposition as well as governing parties; 4) economics is not all a changing mix of political events, some being part of the ongoing political process and others being unanticipated by politicians and public alike, should influence short-term movements in party support, including party identification. The research uses data from existing questions about relevant economic and political variables, together with data from new questions added to monthly surveys (May 1992-April 1997) conducted by the British Gallup organization. By adding questions to existing ones in 60 surveys, this cost-effective project can produce the key variables and sufficient time point needed for aggregate-time series analyses of party support during the maximum constitutional term of the current British parliament. The research promises to substantially enhance our understanding of the key issues of the research.