Fixed, Crystallising or diverging: Attitude formation and change in the run-up to Brexit

对移民和经济的态度被认为是欧盟公投中投票选择的主要驱动力，主权和“收回控制权”问题也是如此。特蕾莎·梅宣布，她打算在2017年3月触发第50条，这意味着英国将有望在2019年夏天离开欧盟。英国政府还明确表示要对选民保持信心，并希望确保英国退欧后的移民制度和经济战略得到公众的认可。然而，选民的偏好将难以转化为政策。公众舆论是高度多样化的：不同阶层的公众意见各不相同，有些态度可能比其他态度更坚定，从而对决策形成真实的制约。随着谈判的进行或获得新的信息，预期和后果可能会发生变化。公民可能愿意允许权衡，例如接受一定程度的移民作为值得支付的成本，以保持交易选择的开放。另一方面，可能会有一些“红线”，部分公众不会准备跨越。除了研究公众对结果的偏好和期望之外，研究对实际情况的了解程度也是相当有意义的。对移民的态度在很大程度上取决于所感受到的威胁，而威胁又取决于对移民人数的看法。然而，公众在估计移民人数时的“无知”一直得到证明。知识还可能与政策相关，因为政府可能希望努力提高公众对某些关键问题的理解。我们的研究目标是提供高质量的证据，政策制定者希望了解的民意方面。我们专注于三个主要的研究目标。首先，我们将考察公众态度和意见的详细结构，包括权衡的意愿、地区差异的程度，以及了解人们会接受超国家治理的政策领域。其次，我们力求了解态度和期望变化的动态。个人对英国脱欧相关问题的看法在多大程度上是“一成不变”的？我们感兴趣的是变化的模式，无论我们发现的是随着时间的推移而趋同，还是人口不同部分之间的分歧和两极分化。随着时间的推移，我们可能会发现态度和身份的结晶，或者随着谈判的复杂性变得明显，身份界限变得模糊。第三，我们试图了解态度变化的驱动因素，以及个人因素（如社会阶层），社会身份（如Brexiteer）和背景因素（如宏观经济变化）所扮演的角色。为了解决这些研究问题，我们将以互联网小组的形式进行一项新的调查。互联网小组的主要优点是数据收集过程迅速，我们的目标是在18个月的项目期间进行六轮数据收集。小组成员每三个月将收到一份在线问卷，其中包括新问题（针对政治和经济事件）和旧问题（使我们能够衡量个人态度的变化）。我们的小组将在每一轮更新新的受访者，以保持样本量在所需的水平（每波约3,000人）。我们将每季度发布针对政策制定者的短期报告。我们还打算在整个项目期间定期与政策制定者举办研讨会，以便我们能够不断获得专家的意见，了解政策制定者需要了解什么。我们希望我们的研究结果能引起决策者的极大兴趣，包括智囊团等机构，以及公众。

Attitudes towards immigration and the economy were considered to be major drivers of the vote choice in the EU Referendum, as were issues of sovereignty and 'taking back control'. Theresa May has announced that she intends to trigger Article 50 in March 2017, meaning that Britain will be expected to leave the European Union by the summer of 2019. The government has also expressed clear intention to keep faith with the electorate, and will want to ensure that the post-Brexit immigration system and economic strategy meet with public approval.Yet voter preferences are going to be challenging to translate into policy. Public opinion is highly diverse: as well as varying across different sections of the public, some attitudes may be held more firmly than others and thus represent a real constraint on policy-making. Expectations and consequences are likely to shift as the negotiations proceed or as new information becomes available. Citizens may be willing to allow trade-offs, for example accepting a certain level of immigration as a cost worth paying in order to keep trading options open. On the other hand there may be 'red lines' which sections of the public will not be prepared to cross. As well as looking at the public's preferences and expectations about outcomes, it is of considerable interest to look at the extent of knowledge about the actual situation. Attitudes towards immigration are largely contingent on perceived threat which in turn relies on perceptions of the number of immigrants. Yet public 'innumeracy' in estimating the number of immigrants has been consistently demonstrated. Knowledge is also likely to be of policy relevance since government might wish to make efforts to improve public understanding of some key issues. Our research aim is to provide high quality evidence on the aspects of public opinion that policy-makers will want to understand. We focus on three main research objectives. Firstly, we will examine the detailed structure of public attitudes and opinion, including willingness to make trade-offs, the degree to which there is regional variation, and understanding the policy areas in which people will accept supranational governance. Secondly, we seek to understand the dynamics of change in attitudes and expectations. To what extent are individual opinions on Brexit-related matters 'set in stone'? We are interested in patterns of change, whether we find convergence over time or divergence and polarization between different segments of the population. We may find a crystallization of attitudes and identities over time, or a blurring of identity boundaries as the complexities of the negotiations become apparent. Thirdly, we seek to understand the drivers of changing attitudes, and the role played by individual factors (e.g. social class), social identities (e.g. Brexiteer), and contextual factors (e.g. macro-economic changes).To address these research questions, we will conduct a new survey, in the form of an internet panel. Internet panels have the major advantage of being quick in terms of the data collection process, and we aim to do six rounds of data collection over the 18-month project period. Panel members will be approached every three months with an online questionnaire made up of a mix of new questions (in response to political and economic events) and old (allowing us to measure how attitudes of individuals have changed). Our panel will be refreshed with new respondents in each round in order to keep the sample size at the required levels (around 3,000 per wave). We will publish short reports every quarter aimed at policy-makers. We also intend to run regular workshops with policy makers at regular intervals throughout the project so that we can have continual expert inputs about what policy makers need to know. We expect our results to be of great interest to policy makers, including bodies such as think tanks, as well as to the general public.