A Changing Electoral Politics in Western Democracies: Comparing the 2017 British Election to France, Germany, the United States, and Southern Europe within the Comparative National

在英国，稳定的、协商一致的民主制度正在分崩离析。反建制的民粹主义政治运动正在兴起，传统的政党支持基础发生了变化，公众在许多问题上存在严重分歧，最明显的是英国退欧，苏格兰正在威胁举行第二次独立公投。然而，这种政治行为和政党制度结构上的惊人发展并非英国独有。相反，它们似乎是其它许多老牌西方民主国家发生变化的征兆。这个项目提议对2017年6月8日大选中的英国选民进行研究。这个企业本身就是一个有趣的话题。它还提供了一个将一个国家的投票行为与其他七个西方民主国家进行比较的机会。该项目是更大的国家选举比较项目（CNEP）的一部分，CNEP包括对美国、法国和四个南欧国家最近的全国选举的调查，以及即将在2017年在德国进行的选举后调查。CNEP的共同核心调查设计允许对八个案例进行系统比较。CNEP在英国的调查将利用从其他七个西方民主国家收集的数据，并通过一个由国家和跨国选举专家组成的合作网络，产生重大影响。该项目有可能揭示有助于加强民主、鼓励公民参与和参与、改善政治沟通和解决政治两极分化造成的负面后果的因素。该小组将广泛传播数据和调查结果。调查人员计划通过媒体采访、大学宣传、“对话”和《华盛顿邮报》的“猴子笼”博客等平台上的文章、白皮书和社区讲座等方式向公众公布他们的发现。对2017年6月8日英国大选中的选民进行的一项调查为理论驱动的比较研究提供了机会，研究了四个最大（或核心）西方民主国家的当代投票行为：美国、法国、德国和英国，这些国家都在一年内举行了全国选举。对2016年美国总统选举和5月7日法国总统选举第二轮的平行调查已经完成，对9月德国联邦立法选举的平行调查正在进行中。这些研究都使用了共同核心问卷，在过去三十年中，在比较国家选举项目（CNEP）的主持下，在27个国家进行了49次选举后调查。使用一份共同问题单，并对最近在南欧举行的选举进行了四次中央经济政策中心调查，大大促进了比较分析。拟议项目的优势在于，它允许对这八个西方民主国家的投票行为进行系统的比较分析，其中至少有三个国家近年来经历了实质性的政党制度重组。通过将这八种政治制度与过去三年使用CNEP核心问卷调查的几个半民主国家（如土耳其）进行选择性比较分析，将获得有关CNEP某些核心问题（如对民主的态度）的额外分析见解。这项研究的主要目的是试图解释近年来出现的对既定投票行为模式和政党制度结构的根本挑战。该小组这样做的重点是诸如对经济压力的反应、政治调解模式的变化、对民主的需求和满意度以及政治两极分化等因素。除了能够分析2017年的英国选民，CNEP英国调查还将通过利用来自3个核心西方民主国家和4个南欧国家的数据收集，以及利用国家和跨国选举专家网络，产生强大的乘数效应。预计结果将包括一卷西方核心民主国家和南欧选举政治新模式的图表，论文和同行评议的出版物，分析影响西方核心民主国家稳定和政党支持变化的主要潜在因素，以及在禁运期后公开发布英国数据集。

The system of stable and consensual democracy in Britain is fraying at the edges. Anti-establishment populist political movements are on the rise, the traditional bases of party support have shifted, the public is deeply divided on many issues, most visibly Brexit, and Scotland is threatening a second independence referendum. However, these kinds of startling developments in political behavior and party system structure are not unique to Britain. Rather, they seem to be symptomatic of changes in many other established western democracies. This project proposes a study of British voters in the June 8, 2017 general election. That enterprise is an interesting topic in its own right. It also provides an opportunity to compare voting behavior in one country with that in seven other western democracies. The project is a part of the larger Comparative National Election Project (CNEP), which consists of surveys on recent national elections in the United States, France, and four Southern European countries, along with an upcoming 2017 post-election survey in Germany. The CNEP's common core survey design allows for systematic comparison across the eight cases. The CNEP survey in Great Britain will produce significant impacts by leveraging data collection from seven other western democracies, and through a collaborative network of country and cross-national election experts. The project holds the potential to shed insights on factors that can help strengthen democracy, encourage citizen participation and engagement, improve political communication, and address negative consequences resulting from political polarization. The team will disseminate data and findings widely. The investigators plan to publicize their findings to the public via media interviews, university publicity, essays on such platforms such as The Conversation and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog, white papers, and community talks. A survey of voters in the British general election on June 8, 2017 provides the opportunity for theoretically-driven comparative research examining contemporary voting behavior in the four largest (or core) western democracies: the United States, France, Germany, and Great Britain, all of which have held national elections within the a year of each other. Parallel surveys of the 2016 presidential election in the United States and the May 7 second-round French presidential election have been completed, and a parallel survey of the September federal legislative elections in Germany is in the works. These studies all utilize the common core questionnaire that has been at the center of 49 post-election surveys in 27 countries over the past three decades under the auspices of the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP). Use of a common questionnaire and the availability of four CNEP surveys of elections recently held in southern Europe greatly facilitates comparative analysis. The strength of the proposed project is the systematic comparative analysis it allows of voting behavior across these eight western democracies, at least three of which have undergone substantial party-system realignment in recent years. Additional analytical insights concerning certain core CNEP concerns, such as attitudes toward democracy, will be gained by selective comparative analysis of these eight political systems with several semi-democratic countries (e.g. Turkey) that have been surveyed in the last three years using the core CNEP questionnaire. The primary aim of the research is to seek to explain the fundamental challenges to established patterns of voting behavior and the structure of party systems that emerged in recent years. The team does so focusing on factors such as responses to economic stress, changing patterns of political intermediation, demand for and satisfaction with democracy, and political polarization. Beyond enabling analysis of British voters in 2017, the CNEP British survey will have a strong multiplier effect by leveraging data collection from the 3 core western democracies and 4 southern Europe countries, as well as by drawing upon a network of country and cross-national election experts. The outcomes are expected to include a volume charting new patterns of electoral politics in core western democracies and southern Europe, papers and peer-reviewed publications analyzing the major underlying factors impacting stability and change in party support in the core western democratic countries and the public release of the British dataset after an embargo period.