Conservative Party discourse on Europe: do Conservative Parliamentarians represent the party at the grassroots?

保守党欧洲话语：保守党议员代表该党基层吗？

• 批准号: 2105158
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2105158
• 关键词: Conservative; Party; discourse; Europe; do

Brexit is arguably the greatest political challenge the United Kingdom (UK) has faced since the Second World War. The UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) has given the Conservative Government the opportunity to shape politics for years to come, through negotiations with the EU and new legislation in Parliament. With such far-reaching effects, and with democracy in the UK depending on the representation of public preferences by Members of Parliament (MPs), it is imperative that the final Brexit deal is responsive to the voters.The project will aim to answer the following research questions:1. To what extent does the parliamentary Conservative Party represent the views of the party members in their discourse on Europe?a. If party members are represented by Conservative MPs, are they represented in a symbolic and/or a substantive manner?b. If party members' views on Europe are not represented by Conservative MPs, what are the main reasons for this? 2. To what extent do patterns of representation vary geographically in England?In order to answer the above questions, research will draw upon Pitkin's four forms of representation (1980), which is widely considered essential, and the idea of party linkage. Party linkage has become increasingly fundamental to studies of representation and a theoretical base was developed by Lawson in 1980, where party linkage is used as a tool to assess the presence of democracy.The discourse of Conservative MPs, as the 'party elites' in Parliament, will compared with that of the party members at the 'grassroots'. The study will use Discursive Institutionalism (DI) as a conceptual approach, allowing a systematic study of discourse in an institutional context. DI explores the content of ideas and the interactive processes through which ideas are generated and is considered valuable in studies on Europe, given its multifaceted nature as an issue.Three research methods will be utilised. First, documentary analysis will explore the content of MPs' discourse, looking at primary data found in three debates at intervals through the passage of Brexit legislation. Second, interviews with MPs will explore how these ideas are communicated. MPs will be asked about their perspective on representation, how they represent local members and the challenges they face. Interviews will contribute to the dataset by uncovering what is not recorded publicly and any underlying motivations. Third, focus group research of party members in three parliamentary constituencies, with varied referendum results and geographical locations, will be carried out. This will allow a rich dataset of diverse views to be collected and geographical patterns of variation and specific conclusions about MPs' dilemmas of representation to be drawn.This study is pertinent at a time when the Conservative Party is deeply divided over Britain's future relationship with the EU, and a disconnect between the party in public office and at the grassroots has been found. It matters not only for the consequences of these divisions on party unity, but also the implications that the divisions are likely to have on the representation of party members by the elites. If MPs are not representative even of their local party members, this has major implications for the democratic nature of the future EU-UK relationship.

英国脱欧可以说是英国自二战以来面临的最大政治挑战。英国退出欧盟（EU）使保守党政府有机会通过与欧盟的谈判和议会的新立法来塑造未来几年的政治。由于影响如此深远，而且英国的民主取决于议会议员 (MP) 代表公众偏好，因此最终的脱欧协议必须对选民做出回应。该项目旨在回答以下研究问题：1。议会保守党在关于欧洲的言论中在多大程度上代表了党员的观点？如果党员由保守党议员代表，他们是否以象征性和/或实质性方式代表？如果保守党议员不能代表党员对欧洲的看法，那么主要原因是什么？ 2. 英国的代表制模式在多大程度上因地域而异？为了回答上述问题，研究将借鉴皮特金被广泛认为必不可少的四种代表制形式（1980）以及政党联系的思想。政党联系对于代表性研究越来越重要，劳森于1980年建立了理论基础，将政党联系用作评估民主存在的工具。保守党议员作为议会中的“政党精英”的话语将与“草根”党员的话语进行比较。该研究将使用话语制度主义（DI）作为概念方法，允许对制度背景下的话语进行系统研究。 DI 探索思想的内容以及产生思想的互动过程，鉴于其作为一个问题的多方面性，它被认为在欧洲研究中很有价值。将使用三种研究方法。首先，文献分析将探讨议员们的言论内容，研究英国脱欧立法通过过程中不时出现的三场辩论中发现的主要数据。其次，对议员的采访将探讨如何传达这些想法。议员们将被问及他们对代表权的看法、他们如何代表当地议员以及他们面临的挑战。访谈将通过揭示未公开记录的内容和任何潜在动机来为数据集做出贡献。第三，将对公投结果和地理位置各不相同的三个议会选区的党员进行焦点小组研究。这将有助于收集包含不同观点的丰富数据集，并得出关于议员代表困境的地理变化模式和具体结论。 这项研究是在保守党对英国与欧盟未来关系存在深刻分歧、以及该党在公职和基层之间存在脱节的情况下进行的。这不仅关系到这些分歧对政党团结的影响，而且还关系到这些分歧可能对精英对党员代表的影响。如果国会议员甚至不能代表当地党员，这将对未来欧盟与英国关系的民主性质产生重大影响。