Out of touch and out of time? A Cross-Temporal and Cross-Level Analysis of the Social and Ideological Distance between UK Voters and Political Elites

越来越多的人认为政客与选民“脱节”。近年来，选民和政治精英之间的距离似乎有所扩大，这被认为是导致民粹主义和反民主态度上升的原因之一。精英和公众之间的差距是否变得如此之大，以至于政客们已经没有时间被接受为选民的合法代表，或者这些过程可能被逆转？政党、政策制定者和政客可以做些什么来缩小与选民之间的差距？要回答这些问题，我们需要了解政客和选民之间的“脱节”最初是如何出现的。目前还没有关于英国精英-选民一致性动态的研究，但这种分析的数据可以通过一系列候选人研究(1992-2015)的形式获得，这些研究可以与关于选民态度的选举研究相匹配。北爱尔兰、苏格兰和威尔士的选举也有类似的候选人和选民研究，因此也有可能解决选民和精英在不同级别的政府中是否以及为什么或多或少脱节的问题。该项目寻求将从英国候选人调查中收集的所有现有数据结合起来。然后，这样的数据集可以与英国选举研究中收集的关于选民和普通公众的数据以及相应的地区数据结合在一起，为动态研究英国选民和精英之间的互动提供基础。在这个综合数据集的帮助下，我们将能够分析一些在关于代表和英国选举机构运作的辩论中至关重要的问题。分析的主要重点将是随着时间的推移而发生的变化及其相互关系。随着时间的推移，参选的候选人是否或多或少地成为了选民的“代表”？是什么导致了代表人数减少的趋势？候选人的性别、性取向、种族、职业和当地居住地等特征对当选机会有什么影响，随着时间的推移，这种影响是如何变化的？这些社会背景的变化与政治一致性的变化之间有什么联系？例如，来自他们所代表的地区的候选人和议员的增加是否会影响选民在政策偏好上的一致性？这个项目的一个特别创新将是能够比较候选人随着时间的推移的态度和政策立场。我们能找到政治‘生命周期’效应的证据吗？政治活动家在职业生涯开始时采取更激进的立场，然后随着年龄和经验的增长而成熟。另一方面，年轻的政客可能更有野心，因此有更大的动机来拖累政党路线，压制任何更激进的立场。根据我们的调查结果，可能会根据政党的喜好来考虑不同的候选人选择政策。该项目不仅将关注威斯敏斯特的政治，还将分析权力下放带来的事态发展。许多权力下放的支持者认为，在北爱尔兰、苏格兰和威尔士建立的民选机构将比下议院更能代表人民。我们将首次能够分析，权力下放是否真的产生了更具代表性的政治精英。如果北爱尔兰议会、苏格兰议会和威尔士国民议会在其社会构成方面更具代表性，那么这些变化对政治一致性有什么影响？就对权力下放的态度而言，这种对随时间变化的分析将特别有趣。这些国家的政治精英是否接受了新制度，还是权力下放前的冲突仍在持续？

Politicians are increasingly perceived as 'out of touch' with voters. The distance between voters and the political elite appears to have grown over recent years and is seen to contribute to the rise of 'populism' and anti-democratic attitudes. Has the gap between elites and public grown so large that politicians are 'out of time' to be accepted as legitimate representatives of the electorate, or could these processes be reversed? What can political parties, policy makers and politicians do to close the gap with voters?To answer these questions, we need to understand how the "disconnect" between politicians and their voters emerged in the first place. There has been no study on the dynamics of elite-voter congruence in the UK, but the data for such an analysis are available in the shape of a series of candidate studies (1992-2015) which can be matched with electoral studies on voter attitudes. Similar candidate and voter studies are also available for the elections to devolved representative bodies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and thus it is also possible to address the question whether and why voters and elites are more or less disjointed across different levels of government. The project seeks to combine all existing data gathered on candidate surveys in the UK. Such a dataset can then be joined with data on voters and the general public, collected in the British Election Study and its regional equivalents, to provide the basis of a dynamic study of the interaction between voters and elites in the UK. With the help of this combined dataset, we will be able to analyse a number of questions that have been of central importance in debates about representation and the workings of electoral institutions in the UK. The main focus of the analysis will be on changes over time and their interrelationship. Have candidates standing for elections become more or less 'representative' of their voters over time? What caused any movement towards decreasing representation? What influence have candidate traits such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, occupation and local residence had on the chances of being elected, and how has this changed over time? What is the link between these changes in social background and changes in political congruence? For example, does an increase in candidates and MPs who come from the local area they represent have an impact on the congruence in policy preferences with voters? A particular innovation of this project will be the ability to compare the attitudes and policy positions of candidates over time. Can we find evidence of a political 'life-cycle' effect with political activists taking up more radical position at the beginning of their career and then mellow as a result of age and experience? On the other hand, younger politicians might be more ambitious and thus have a greater incentive to tow the party line and suppress any more radical stances. Different policies on the selection of candidates may be considered in the light of our findings, depending on the preferences of political parties. The project will not just focus on Westminster politics but also analyse developments as a result of devolution. Many proponents of devolution thought that the elected bodies created in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales would be more representative of the people than the House of Commons. We will be able to analyse, for the first time, whether devolution has in fact produced a more representative political elite. If the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales are somewhat more representative in terms of its social make-up, what has been the effect of these changes on political congruence? This analysis of change over time will be particularly interesting in terms of attitudes to devolution. Have the political elites in these nations embraced the new institutions, or do pre-devolution conflicts still persist?