Economic Evaluations, Issue Activation and Party Support: The European Union and the British Party System

经济评估、问题激活和政党支持：欧盟和英国政党制度

• 批准号: 9710148
• 负责人: Harold Clarke
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Dallas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-07-15 至 2001-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9710148&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Economic; Evaluations; Issue; Activation; Party

In late 20th century democracies, a party's standing with the electorate can change very rapidly. Great Britain provides an excellent example - - the massive reversals of fortune experienced by the Conservative and Labour parties since the April, 1992 general election demonstrate how party support can vary greatly over short time periods. Although political scientists long have been interested in such dynamics, efforts to develop theoretical models capable of explaining them have provoked heated controversies, and important disputes remain unresolved. The proposed study is designed to address several of the most significant debates, and thereby illuminate forces shaping the prospects of individual parties and party systems as a whole in Britain and other contemporary mature democracies. Building on prior research, the current investigation is especially timely because it investigates factors affecting party support in Britain at a critical juncture in that country's relationship with the European Union. Analyses show that the set of issues activated by the development of that relationship, as envisaged under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, has exerted strong effects on public support for British parties and their leaders in the early and mid-1990s. Injected into the political arena by provisions of that treaty, EU issues such as the single European currency will continue to exercise significant effects during the fire-year period (1997-2002) encompassed by the proposed project. The project constitutes an extremely cost-effective means of gathering the time series data essential for investigating the evolution and impact of public attitudes toward the issues posed by the EU in the context of developing and testing rival models of the dynamics of public support for political parties and their leaders. The data are generated by questions placed on 48 consecutive monthly national surveys conducted by the British Gallup organization. Questions asked include the standard British Election study battery on party identification, evaluations and (dis)approval of Britain's membership in the European Union, and evaluations of and emotional reactions to national and personal economic conditions. These questions are supplemented by standard Gallup questions concerning vote intentions, past vote, prime ministerial and opposition party leader approval, the relative competence of major parties to manage the country's economy, and a variety of important sociodemographic characteristics This dataset will be of immense value to other scholars interested in the topic.

在20世纪末的民主国家，一个政党在选民中的地位可能会很快发生变化。英国提供了一个很好的例子--自1992年4月大选以来，保守党和工党经历了巨大的命运逆转，这表明该党的支持率在很短的时间内可能会有很大的差异。尽管政治学家长期以来一直对这种动态感兴趣，但开发能够解释它们的理论模型的努力引发了激烈的争议，重要的争议仍未解决。这项拟议的研究旨在解决几个最重要的辩论，从而阐明在英国和其他当代成熟的民主国家中，塑造单个政党和整个政党制度前景的力量。在之前研究的基础上，目前的调查尤其及时，因为它调查了在英国与欧盟关系的关键时刻影响英国政党支持的因素。分析表明，按照《马斯特里赫特条约》的规定，发展这种关系所引发的一系列问题对1990年代初和中期公众对英国政党及其领导人的支持产生了重大影响。根据该条约的规定，欧盟问题，如单一欧洲货币，将在拟议项目所涵盖的火年期间(1997-2002年)继续产生重大影响。该项目是一种极具成本效益的收集时间序列数据的手段，对于在开发和测试公众对政党及其领导人的支持动态的竞争模型的背景下，调查公众对欧盟提出的问题的态度的演变和影响至关重要。这些数据是由英国盖洛普组织进行的连续48次月度全国调查中的问题产生的。提出的问题包括标准的英国选举研究报告，内容包括政党认同、对英国欧盟成员国身份的评估和(不批准)，以及对国家和个人经济状况的评估和情绪反应。除了这些问题，还有一些标准的盖洛普问题，涉及投票意向、过去的投票、首相和反对党领导人的认可、主要政党管理国家经济的相对能力，以及各种重要的社会人口特征。这个数据集将对其他对这个话题感兴趣的学者具有巨大的价值。