Brexit-divided Britain: How people know what to think when political loyalties conflict

在我提出的研究中，我将调查在政党不团结的背景下，个人如何对复杂的政治问题形成意见。案例研究将是英国在2016年脱欧公投之前和之后的情况。鉴于英国主要政党的分裂性质，以及英国脱欧态度在两极分化但非党派之间的分歧，我研究了个人持有某些态度、信仰和问题立场的机制。我特别关注媒体和政治精英的影响，提供了一种新的方法来理解“动机推理”在政党向选民提供明显混合信息的情况下的作用。我的研究将有两个重要的潜在含义。首先，它将动机推理的有用理论扩展到一个相对陌生的环境。众所周知，在正常的政治环境中，个人通过党派“过滤器”来处理新的信息和论点。通过考虑一个政党身份不太相关的背景，在很大程度上是因为分裂的政党本身提供了相互冲突的信息，我的研究将扩展我们对个人处理信息的过滤器的了解。其次，我的研究将对理解2015年以来的英国政治具有具体的实证意义。通过特别关注媒体和政治精英，我的工作将有助于解决有关最近英国政治发展的一些典型问题。它也将有助于解决一些具体的经验难题。例如，为什么自英国脱欧公投以来，对移民的担忧有所下降？

In my proposed research I will investigate how, in the context of party disunity, individuals form opinions on complex political issues. The case study will be Britain in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Given the divided nature of Britain's major parties, and the division of Brexit attitudes across polarised but non-partisan lines, I investigate the mechanism by which individuals come to hold certain attitudes, beliefs, and issue positions. I focus particularly on the influence of media and political elites, providing a novel approach to understanding the role 'motivated reasoning' in contexts where political parties provide voterswith decidedly mixed messages.My research will have two important potential implications. Firstly, it will offer an extension of the useful theory of motivated reasoning to a relatively unfamiliar context. It is well understood that, in normal political contexts, individuals process new information and arguments through a partisan 'filter'. By considering a context where party identity has much less relevance, in large part because the divided parties themselves offer conflicting messages, my research will extend our knowledge of the filters through which individuals process information.Secondly, my research will have concrete empirical implications for understanding British politics since 2015. By focussing particularly on media and political elites my work will help tackle some of typical questions asked about recent British political developments. It will also help to solve some specific empirical puzzles. For example, why has immigration concern fallen since the Brexit referendum?