Scottish Election Study 2016

2016年5月，16岁以上的苏格兰居民将在第五届苏格兰议会选举中投票。这是在英国大选一年后举行的，苏格兰民族党在大选中赢得了除三个席位之外的所有席位，而在20个月前的全民公投中，独立支持率上升到45%，在最近的一些民意调查中，这一数字超过了这一数字。这次选举提供了一个机会，探讨苏格兰政治中的长期选举重组、公投的具体影响以及选举权延长后青年选举的参与。我们会在选举前进行一项网上调查，找出影响投票意向的因素，然后在选举后即时进行调查，找出市民投票的方式和原因。通过这种面板设计，我们可以确定意图如何转化为行为，并了解预期如何影响对选举结果的反应。选举前的调查将在竞选的最后四周进行，以记录人们对竞选活动和民意调查的反应。此外，我们将通过对政党代理人的调查、对政党官员的采访以及领导人访问和竞选支出的数据来收集竞选数据。我们还将收集2016年1月以来的民意调查数据，跟踪这些数据和竞选调查数据，以评估这些民调的影响。首先，我们感兴趣的是探索个人是否以及如何决定投票，这一过程可能如何受到与英国大选不同的因素的影响，以及之前的权力下放选举中的投票行为模式是否仍然能够考虑公投后的党派偏好。我们不仅会将2016年选举中的偏好与过去在权力下放和英国选举中的投票行为联系起来，还会探讨对两个更广泛问题的看法：英国(英格兰和苏格兰)的宪法改革以及英国退出欧盟的可能性。在每一种情况下，我们都可以研究这与2016年SP选举的党派偏好和竞选策略有何关系。通过这一过程，我们将通过与2016威尔士选举研究团队的合作，在比较的背景下找到苏格兰的调查结果，我们将与他们一起举办一门关于权力下放的大规模在线公开课。我们还将包括比较选举民主工作项目的核心问题，该项目迄今已在五个州进行了次州调查。我们的项目将在这个比较项目中提供第一个用于分析的英国数据。我们的研究问题在支持案例中详细讨论，涉及选举中有争议的投票行为理论。我们专注于投票行为在多大程度上取决于身份、议题立场(尤其是在独立性问题上)、意识形态、对政府绩效的评估以及领导人的偏好。我们利用了大量关于苏格兰投票行为的研究，其中很大一部分是由之前的苏格兰选举研究数据产生的。我们渴望为公众辩论作出贡献，并促进参与研究进程。我们将在调查开始前举行咨询活动，邀请学术研究人员和学校学生提出调查问题，以易于在线分析的形式提供数据，并将聘请沟通团队与关键利益攸关方接触。在线研究促进了研究结果的快速发布，这样我们就能够为关于选举结果的更广泛的辩论做出贡献。我们将举办简报活动，制作简报论文，并为期刊和一本针对顶尖大学出版社的专著提供高质量的学术研究。我们还将举办能力建设活动，为中学生和大学生获取数据提供便利。

In May 2016 Scottish residents aged 16+ will vote in the fifth election to the Scottish Parliament. This takes place a year after the UK General Election in which the SNP won all but three Scottish seats, and 20 months after a referendum in which support for independence rose to 45%, a figure surpassed in some recent polls. This election provide an opportunity to explore long-term electoral realignment in Scottish politics, the specific impact of the referendum, and youth electoral engagement following the extension of the franchise. In addition we will address more habitual concerns about the impact of campaigning or opinion polls and the predictors of vote choice.We will conduct an online survey before the election to identify the factors influencing vote intention, and return to the same respondents in an immediate post-election survey to identify how and why people voted the way they did. Via this panel design, we can determine how intentions translate into behaviour and see how expectations influence reactions to the election result. The pre-election survey will be conducted across the last four weeks of the campaign to capture reaction to campaign events and polls. In addition, we will collect data on campaigning through a survey of party agents, interviews with party officials, and data on leader visits and campaign spending. We will also collect data on opinion polls from January 2016, tracking these alongside the campaign survey data to assess the impact of these polls.Primarily we are interested in exploring whether and how individuals decide to vote, how this process might be shaped by factors distinct from UK general elections, and also whether previous models of voting behaviour in devolved elections are still able to account for partisan preferences after the referendum. We will not only link preferences in the 2016 election to past voting behaviour in devolved and UK elections but also probe opinion on two wider issues: constitutional change in the UK (in England as well as Scotland) and the possibility of British exit from the EU. In each case, we can examine how this relates both to partisan preferences and campaign strategies in the 2016 SP elections.Throughout we will locate Scottish findings within a comparative context through our collaboration with the 2016 Welsh Election Study team, with whom we will conduct a Massive Open Online Course on the devolved elections. We will also include a core of questions from the comparative Making Electoral Democracy Work project, which to date has conducted sub-state surveys in five states . Our project will provide the first UK data for analysis within this comparative project. Our research questions, discussed in detail in the case for support, relate to contested theories of voting behaviour in elections. We focus on the extent to which voting behaviour is a function of identity, issue positions (especially on the independence question), ideology, evaluations of government performance, and leader preferences. We draw on a rich body of research on Scottish voting behaviour, much of which has been generated by previous Scottish Election Study data. We are eager to contribute to public debate and to facilitate engagement with the research process. We will hold consultation events before the survey begins, will invite academic researchers and school students to suggest survey questions, will provide the data in a format that is easy to analyse online and will employ a communications team to reach key stakeholders. Online research facilitates the quick release of research findings so that we will be able to contribute to wider debates about the election result. We will conduct briefing events and produce briefing papers as well as generate top quality academic research for journals and a monograph targeted at a top university press. We will also hold capacity building events to facilitate access to data for secondary school and university students.