Philip Cowley
Biographic Data
| ID | 3877571 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Philip Cowley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Philip |
| FAMILY NAME | Cowley |
| SIGNATURE | COWLEY P |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 651 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
An inexperienced parliament
The Death of May’s Law: Intra- and Inter-Party Value Differences in Britain’s Labour and Conservative Parties
Party competition in Great Britain increasingly revolves around social or ‘cultural’ issues as much as it does around the economic issues that took centre stage when class was assumed to be dominant. We use data from surveys of members of parliament, party members and voters to explore how this shift has affected the internal coalitions of the Labour and Conservative Parties – and to provide a fresh test of ‘May’s Law’. We find a considerable dis…
Why Friends and Neighbors? Explaining the Electoral Appeal of Local Roots
Why do politicians with strong local roots receive more electoral support? The mechanisms underlying this well-documented “friends and neighbors” effect remain largely untested. Drawing on two population-based survey experiments fielded in Britain, we provide the first experimental test of a commonly posited cue-based explanation, which argues that voters use politicians’ local roots (descriptive localism) to make inferences about politicians’ li…
Legislator Dissent as a Valence Signal
Existing research suggests that voters tend to respond positively to legislator independence due to two types of mechanism. First, dissent has an indirect effect, increasing a legislator’s media coverage and personal recognition among constituents (profile effects). Secondly, constituents react positively to dissent when this signals that the legislator has matching political or representational preferences (conditional evaluation). This article …
Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England
British General Election Of 2015
This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137366115. It has been reproduced with with permission of Palgrave Macmillan
The Effect of Teaching Parliamentary Studies on Students' Knowledge and Attitudes: A Pilot Study
The Westminster Parliament has recently invested considerable resource in developing a series of ‘Parliamentary Studies’ modules throughout British universities. But what difference does the teaching of Parliament make to students' understanding of the institution? In this pilot study, the results of a series of questions about the institution (both factual and attitudinal) which are asked at the beginning of the module are compared with the resu…
What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment
There has been extensive research into the extent to which voters utilise short cuts based on gender and race stereotypes when evaluating candidates, but relatively little is known about how they respond to other background characteristics. We compare the impact of candidates' sex, religion, age, education, occupation and location/residence through a survey experiment in which respondents rate two candidates based on short biographies. We find sm…
Descriptive Representation and Political Trust: A Quasi-natural Experiment Utilising Ignorance
This note investigates the claim that descriptive representation can have symbolic benefits. Using data from Great Britain, it uses the opportunity provided by the ignorance of voters about their legislative institutions to examine the effect of different perceptions of the scale of group representation. It tests whether there is a relationship between estimates of the scale of women's political representation and political trust/satisfaction. It…
A Coalition with Two Wobbly Wings: Backbench Dissent in the House of Commons
Conscience and Parliament
Abortion, Susan Mills and Sally Sheldon homosexuality, Melvyn D. Read and David Marsh war crimes, Gabriele Ganz divorce, Philip Cowley Sunday trading, Melvyn D. Read disability rights, Matthew Bailey and Kevin Shinkwin animal welfare, Robert Garner censorship, Martin Durham voting without a party?, Charles Pattie, Ron Johnston and Mark Stuart
Arise, Novice Leader! The Continuing Rise of the Career Politician in Britain
In late 2010 the leaders of the major British political parties were the most inexperienced of the post-war era. This short article discusses this development. It shows how unusual this is, comparing the leaders of 2010 to their post-war predecessors. It demonstrates that this development is unlikely to be some fluke, before considering the causes of the transformation, which it suggests can be attributed to two things: the changes in the electio…
The Politics of Local Presence: Is there a Case for Descriptive Representation
The case for greater descriptive representation of groups such as women and ethnic minorities has become widely, though not wholly, accepted in much of the academic literature and in the ‘real world’ of politics in most advanced democracies. In the UK the goal of greater descriptive representation of women has often become framed as a zero-sum game against men, especially local men, with consequences for the descriptive representation of women. T…
Votes at 16? The case against
Parliament: More Bleak House than Great Expectations
2003 could well become remembered as the year when backbench voting became both exciting and revealing. The prospect of military action against Iraq triggered the two largest backbench revolts by government MPs since the middle of the nineteenth century. Labour MPs also caused the government headaches on a range of domestic issues. Revolts over foundation hospitals led to the largest rebellion by government backbenchers against the second reading…
In Place of Strife? The PLP in Government, 1997–2001
After entering government in 1997, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) acquired a reputation for acquiescence. This article attempts to answer two related questions. Was this an accurate picture of the PLP under Blair? And if so, what explained it? The number of back-bench revolts was certainly low. Excluding the short parliaments of 1964 and February 1974, we have to go back to 1955 to find a parliament with fewer rebellions by government back …
Too Spineless to Rebel? New Labour's Women MPs
The 1997 British general election saw a record 120 women returned to the House of Commons, 101 of them Labour. Yet if the most striking feature of the 1997 intake into the House of Commons was the number of newly elected women, then the most striking feature of the backbench rebellions in that parliament was the lack of these women amongst the ranks of the rebels. They were less than half as likely to rebel against the party whip as the rest of t…
The Observer: Good at Observing, Less Good at Influencing
The 1997 British General Election appeared to show a clear-cut case of the media influencing electoral behaviour. In an attempt to facilitate anti-Conservative tactical voting The Observer published the results of 16 constituency-level opinion polls. The newspaper is frequently seen as influential in determining the outcome in certain seats, where several high-profile members of the then Conservative government were defeated. In fact The Observer…
British Parliamentarians and European Integration: A Re-Examination of the MPP Data
This note re-examines the survey data gathered by the Members of Parliament Project (MPP) on the attitudes of British parliamentarians towards European integration. Central to the analysis of the MPP is the idea that within the parties there is at work a dramatic cohort effect: long-serving Labour MPs are Eurosceptic, but the more recently elected Labour MPs are pro-European; whilst long-serving Conservative MPs are pro-European, but the more rec…
The British Conservative Party and Europe: The Choosing of John Major
This article provides an empirical analysis of voting behaviour in the second ballot of the 1990 Conservative leadership contest that resulted in John Major becoming party leader and prime minister. Seven hypotheses of voting behaviour are generated from the extant literature relating voting to socio-economic variables (occupational and educational background), political variables (parliamentary experience, career status, age and electoral margin…
AMS in a cold climate: The scottish parliament in practice
The process of devolution in the UK has already provided an abundance of riches for psephologists. A range of new elections to examine ‐ all with different electoral systems ‐ was almost too good to be true. Now that the legislatures are up and running, attention can turn to how the institutions function in practice ‐ and what this can tell us about the way PR works in practice in the UK. Based on roll call data and a survey of Members of the Sco…
Peasants' Uprising or Religious War? Re-examining the 1975 Conservative Leadership Contest
This article analyses the nature of the support given to the candidates in the 1975 Conservative leadership contest, in which Margaret Thatcher replaced Edward Heath. In contrast to the orthodox account of the contest – which interprets it as largely non-ideological – the article argues that there were clear ideological forces at work. The right strongly supported Thatcher in both rounds; the left strongly backed Heath and then Whitelaw. Region, …
Ambassadors in the Community? Labour Party Members in Society
A political party's members are its ambassadors in the wider community. Based on a survey of Labour party members in Nuneaton, this article investigates the extent to which party members qua party members are visible amongst their friends and colleagues. It finds that there are few closet Labour party members. Most are known to friends and (slightly less commonly) colleagues. Party members also articulate a political message, discussing politics …
Unbridled passions? Free votes, issues of conscience and the accountability of British members of parliament
Certain issues in British politics are known as issues of 'conscience'. It is usual for such issues to be dealt with by a free vote in the House of Commons. Such votes used to occur mainly on private members' bills, although it is now more common for the Commons to resolve issues of conscience by using legislation brought forward by the government (with private members' bills being used either in the earlier stages of campaigning or to enact unco…
Peers' Careers: Ministers in the House of Lords, 1964–95
Ministers in the Lords are an important and overlooked part of the British executive. This article examines who they are, what careers they have, and speculates about careers in a reformed upper chamber. It finds intra-party differences in the type of peer employed as ministers and in previous education but not (greatly) in previous occupation, concluding that ministers in the Lords remain part of a social élite. The effect of gender is also exam…
What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment
There has been extensive research into the extent to which voters utilise short cuts based on gender and race stereotypes when evaluating candidates, but relatively little is known about how they respond to other background characteristics. We compare the impact of candidates' sex, religion, age, education, occupation and location/residence through a survey experiment in which respondents rate two candidates based on short biographies. We find sm…
Too Spineless to Rebel? New Labour's Women MPs
The 1997 British general election saw a record 120 women returned to the House of Commons, 101 of them Labour. Yet if the most striking feature of the 1997 intake into the House of Commons was the number of newly elected women, then the most striking feature of the backbench rebellions in that parliament was the lack of these women amongst the ranks of the rebels. They were less than half as likely to rebel against the party whip as the rest of t…
The Politics of Local Presence: Is there a Case for Descriptive Representation
The case for greater descriptive representation of groups such as women and ethnic minorities has become widely, though not wholly, accepted in much of the academic literature and in the ‘real world’ of politics in most advanced democracies. In the UK the goal of greater descriptive representation of women has often become framed as a zero-sum game against men, especially local men, with consequences for the descriptive representation of women. T…
Legislator Dissent as a Valence Signal
Existing research suggests that voters tend to respond positively to legislator independence due to two types of mechanism. First, dissent has an indirect effect, increasing a legislator’s media coverage and personal recognition among constituents (profile effects). Secondly, constituents react positively to dissent when this signals that the legislator has matching political or representational preferences (conditional evaluation). This article …
Why Friends and Neighbors? Explaining the Electoral Appeal of Local Roots
Why do politicians with strong local roots receive more electoral support? The mechanisms underlying this well-documented “friends and neighbors” effect remain largely untested. Drawing on two population-based survey experiments fielded in Britain, we provide the first experimental test of a commonly posited cue-based explanation, which argues that voters use politicians’ local roots (descriptive localism) to make inferences about politicians’ li…
Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England
Sodomy, Slaughter, Sunday Shopping and Seatbelts: Free Votes in the House of Commons, 1979 to 1996
This report analyses the cohesion of British parliamentary parties over a range of `free' votes - votes on which the party managers gave no instructions - between 1979 and 1996. British parties are usually highly cohesive, and this is often attributed to strict party management by the party `whips', who are said to bully MPs into line. But this report shows that high levels of party discipline exist even when the whips are `off'. Even on moral is…
The British Conservative Party and Europe: The Choosing of John Major
This article provides an empirical analysis of voting behaviour in the second ballot of the 1990 Conservative leadership contest that resulted in John Major becoming party leader and prime minister. Seven hypotheses of voting behaviour are generated from the extant literature relating voting to socio-economic variables (occupational and educational background), political variables (parliamentary experience, career status, age and electoral margin…
Arise, Novice Leader! The Continuing Rise of the Career Politician in Britain
In late 2010 the leaders of the major British political parties were the most inexperienced of the post-war era. This short article discusses this development. It shows how unusual this is, comparing the leaders of 2010 to their post-war predecessors. It demonstrates that this development is unlikely to be some fluke, before considering the causes of the transformation, which it suggests can be attributed to two things: the changes in the electio…
Peasants' Uprising or Religious War? Re-examining the 1975 Conservative Leadership Contest
This article analyses the nature of the support given to the candidates in the 1975 Conservative leadership contest, in which Margaret Thatcher replaced Edward Heath. In contrast to the orthodox account of the contest – which interprets it as largely non-ideological – the article argues that there were clear ideological forces at work. The right strongly supported Thatcher in both rounds; the left strongly backed Heath and then Whitelaw. Region, …
The Death of May’s Law: Intra- and Inter-Party Value Differences in Britain’s Labour and Conservative Parties
Party competition in Great Britain increasingly revolves around social or ‘cultural’ issues as much as it does around the economic issues that took centre stage when class was assumed to be dominant. We use data from surveys of members of parliament, party members and voters to explore how this shift has affected the internal coalitions of the Labour and Conservative Parties – and to provide a fresh test of ‘May’s Law’. We find a considerable dis…
Votes at 16? The case against
Descriptive Representation and Political Trust: A Quasi-natural Experiment Utilising Ignorance
This note investigates the claim that descriptive representation can have symbolic benefits. Using data from Great Britain, it uses the opportunity provided by the ignorance of voters about their legislative institutions to examine the effect of different perceptions of the scale of group representation. It tests whether there is a relationship between estimates of the scale of women's political representation and political trust/satisfaction. It…
Unbridled passions? Free votes, issues of conscience and the accountability of British members of parliament
Certain issues in British politics are known as issues of 'conscience'. It is usual for such issues to be dealt with by a free vote in the House of Commons. Such votes used to occur mainly on private members' bills, although it is now more common for the Commons to resolve issues of conscience by using legislation brought forward by the government (with private members' bills being used either in the earlier stages of campaigning or to enact unco…
In Place of Strife? The PLP in Government, 1997–2001
After entering government in 1997, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) acquired a reputation for acquiescence. This article attempts to answer two related questions. Was this an accurate picture of the PLP under Blair? And if so, what explained it? The number of back-bench revolts was certainly low. Excluding the short parliaments of 1964 and February 1974, we have to go back to 1955 to find a parliament with fewer rebellions by government back …
Ambassadors in the Community? Labour Party Members in Society
A political party's members are its ambassadors in the wider community. Based on a survey of Labour party members in Nuneaton, this article investigates the extent to which party members qua party members are visible amongst their friends and colleagues. It finds that there are few closet Labour party members. Most are known to friends and (slightly less commonly) colleagues. Party members also articulate a political message, discussing politics …
AMS in a cold climate: The scottish parliament in practice
The process of devolution in the UK has already provided an abundance of riches for psephologists. A range of new elections to examine ‐ all with different electoral systems ‐ was almost too good to be true. Now that the legislatures are up and running, attention can turn to how the institutions function in practice ‐ and what this can tell us about the way PR works in practice in the UK. Based on roll call data and a survey of Members of the Sco…
Whither the ‘new role’ in policy making? Conservative MPs in standing committees, 1979 to 1992
Examining the behaviour of Conservative MPs in 5,306 standing committee divisions between 1979 and 1992, this article determines whether the Commons' 'new role' in policy making, identified by Schwarz in 1980, survived the Thatcher years and Major months. One hundred and forty five Conservative MPs cast 684 dissenting votes in 103 bills, inflicting 56 defeats spread over 29 bills. (A further 11 defeats occurred without Conservative dissent.) The …
The Effect of Teaching Parliamentary Studies on Students' Knowledge and Attitudes: A Pilot Study
The Westminster Parliament has recently invested considerable resource in developing a series of ‘Parliamentary Studies’ modules throughout British universities. But what difference does the teaching of Parliament make to students' understanding of the institution? In this pilot study, the results of a series of questions about the institution (both factual and attitudinal) which are asked at the beginning of the module are compared with the resu…
Parliament and the poll tax: A case study in parliamentary pressure
Using interviews with Conservative MPs, three aspects of the Poll Tax not covered by the extant literature are examined. Conservative backbenchers are shown to be more supportive of the tax than in previous accounts. The nature and effect of both the legal and non‐legal protests against the Poll Tax are discussed. The effect of petitioning is found to be minor, but the amount and (especially) the nature of post which MPs received had more impact.…
Peers' Careers: Ministers in the House of Lords, 1964–95
Ministers in the Lords are an important and overlooked part of the British executive. This article examines who they are, what careers they have, and speculates about careers in a reformed upper chamber. It finds intra-party differences in the type of peer employed as ministers and in previous education but not (greatly) in previous occupation, concluding that ministers in the Lords remain part of a social élite. The effect of gender is also exam…
The wild mammals (protection) bill: A parliamentary white elephant
Examining one unsuccessful private members’ bill (PMB) ‐ Kevin McNamara's Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill which would have prohibited hunting ‐ this case study examines many of the non‐legislative functions of the British Parliament. Even unsuccessful PMBs ‐ and this was a PMB whose failure was preordained ‐ have many consequences for both parliament and the wider political system of which it is an integral part. PMBs can perform an important ‘exi…
British Parliamentarians and European Integration: A Re-Examination of the MPP Data
This note re-examines the survey data gathered by the Members of Parliament Project (MPP) on the attitudes of British parliamentarians towards European integration. Central to the analysis of the MPP is the idea that within the parties there is at work a dramatic cohort effect: long-serving Labour MPs are Eurosceptic, but the more recently elected Labour MPs are pro-European; whilst long-serving Conservative MPs are pro-European, but the more rec…
Parliament: More Bleak House than Great Expectations
2003 could well become remembered as the year when backbench voting became both exciting and revealing. The prospect of military action against Iraq triggered the two largest backbench revolts by government MPs since the middle of the nineteenth century. Labour MPs also caused the government headaches on a range of domestic issues. Revolts over foundation hospitals led to the largest rebellion by government backbenchers against the second reading…
The Observer: Good at Observing, Less Good at Influencing
The 1997 British General Election appeared to show a clear-cut case of the media influencing electoral behaviour. In an attempt to facilitate anti-Conservative tactical voting The Observer published the results of 16 constituency-level opinion polls. The newspaper is frequently seen as influential in determining the outcome in certain seats, where several high-profile members of the then Conservative government were defeated. In fact The Observer…
Marginality, Mortality and Majority: The Effect of by-Elections on Government Majorities
The possible effect of by-elections on this Government, and future governments with small majorities, is considered, concentrating on by-elections forced on governments through the death of their MPs. Based on the current age structure of the Conservative party in parliament and previous mortality rates among MPs, it is speculated that the Government will have had seven by-elections forced on it by the next election. More serious problems exist f…
Parliament and the poll tax: A case study in parliamentary pressure
Using interviews with Conservative MPs, three aspects of the Poll Tax not covered by the extant literature are examined. Conservative backbenchers are shown to be more supportive of the tax than in previous accounts. The nature and effect of both the legal and non‐legal protests against the Poll Tax are discussed. The effect of petitioning is found to be minor, but the amount and (especially) the nature of post which MPs received had more impact.…
Whither the ‘new role’ in policy making? Conservative MPs in standing committees, 1979 to 1992
Examining the behaviour of Conservative MPs in 5,306 standing committee divisions between 1979 and 1992, this article determines whether the Commons' 'new role' in policy making, identified by Schwarz in 1980, survived the Thatcher years and Major months. One hundred and forty five Conservative MPs cast 684 dissenting votes in 103 bills, inflicting 56 defeats spread over 29 bills. (A further 11 defeats occurred without Conservative dissent.) The …
The Mystery of the Third Hurdle: Re-Electing the Conservative Leader
This article examines one aspect of the contests for the leadership of the British Conservative Party: the ‘third’ hurdle. Since the introduction of formal elections no Conservative leader has been tripped up by the third hurdle (a need to win ‘convincingly’) but this has not prevented its existence as being taken as fact. This article considers whether it exists at all, and if so, attempts to consider its height. It concludes that if the third h…
The wild mammals (protection) bill: A parliamentary white elephant
Examining one unsuccessful private members’ bill (PMB) ‐ Kevin McNamara's Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill which would have prohibited hunting ‐ this case study examines many of the non‐legislative functions of the British Parliament. Even unsuccessful PMBs ‐ and this was a PMB whose failure was preordained ‐ have many consequences for both parliament and the wider political system of which it is an integral part. PMBs can perform an important ‘exi…
Peers' Careers: Ministers in the House of Lords, 1964–95
Ministers in the Lords are an important and overlooked part of the British executive. This article examines who they are, what careers they have, and speculates about careers in a reformed upper chamber. It finds intra-party differences in the type of peer employed as ministers and in previous education but not (greatly) in previous occupation, concluding that ministers in the Lords remain part of a social élite. The effect of gender is also exam…
Sodomy, Slaughter, Sunday Shopping and Seatbelts: Free Votes in the House of Commons, 1979 to 1996
This report analyses the cohesion of British parliamentary parties over a range of `free' votes - votes on which the party managers gave no instructions - between 1979 and 1996. British parties are usually highly cohesive, and this is often attributed to strict party management by the party `whips', who are said to bully MPs into line. But this report shows that high levels of party discipline exist even when the whips are `off'. Even on moral is…
Unbridled passions? Free votes, issues of conscience and the accountability of British members of parliament
Certain issues in British politics are known as issues of 'conscience'. It is usual for such issues to be dealt with by a free vote in the House of Commons. Such votes used to occur mainly on private members' bills, although it is now more common for the Commons to resolve issues of conscience by using legislation brought forward by the government (with private members' bills being used either in the earlier stages of campaigning or to enact unco…
Ambassadors in the Community? Labour Party Members in Society
A political party's members are its ambassadors in the wider community. Based on a survey of Labour party members in Nuneaton, this article investigates the extent to which party members qua party members are visible amongst their friends and colleagues. It finds that there are few closet Labour party members. Most are known to friends and (slightly less commonly) colleagues. Party members also articulate a political message, discussing politics …
British Parliamentarians and European Integration: A Re-Examination of the MPP Data
This note re-examines the survey data gathered by the Members of Parliament Project (MPP) on the attitudes of British parliamentarians towards European integration. Central to the analysis of the MPP is the idea that within the parties there is at work a dramatic cohort effect: long-serving Labour MPs are Eurosceptic, but the more recently elected Labour MPs are pro-European; whilst long-serving Conservative MPs are pro-European, but the more rec…
The British Conservative Party and Europe: The Choosing of John Major
This article provides an empirical analysis of voting behaviour in the second ballot of the 1990 Conservative leadership contest that resulted in John Major becoming party leader and prime minister. Seven hypotheses of voting behaviour are generated from the extant literature relating voting to socio-economic variables (occupational and educational background), political variables (parliamentary experience, career status, age and electoral margin…
AMS in a cold climate: The scottish parliament in practice
The process of devolution in the UK has already provided an abundance of riches for psephologists. A range of new elections to examine ‐ all with different electoral systems ‐ was almost too good to be true. Now that the legislatures are up and running, attention can turn to how the institutions function in practice ‐ and what this can tell us about the way PR works in practice in the UK. Based on roll call data and a survey of Members of the Sco…
Peasants' Uprising or Religious War? Re-examining the 1975 Conservative Leadership Contest
This article analyses the nature of the support given to the candidates in the 1975 Conservative leadership contest, in which Margaret Thatcher replaced Edward Heath. In contrast to the orthodox account of the contest – which interprets it as largely non-ideological – the article argues that there were clear ideological forces at work. The right strongly supported Thatcher in both rounds; the left strongly backed Heath and then Whitelaw. Region, …
The Observer: Good at Observing, Less Good at Influencing
The 1997 British General Election appeared to show a clear-cut case of the media influencing electoral behaviour. In an attempt to facilitate anti-Conservative tactical voting The Observer published the results of 16 constituency-level opinion polls. The newspaper is frequently seen as influential in determining the outcome in certain seats, where several high-profile members of the then Conservative government were defeated. In fact The Observer…
In Place of Strife? The PLP in Government, 1997–2001
After entering government in 1997, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) acquired a reputation for acquiescence. This article attempts to answer two related questions. Was this an accurate picture of the PLP under Blair? And if so, what explained it? The number of back-bench revolts was certainly low. Excluding the short parliaments of 1964 and February 1974, we have to go back to 1955 to find a parliament with fewer rebellions by government back …
Too Spineless to Rebel? New Labour's Women MPs
The 1997 British general election saw a record 120 women returned to the House of Commons, 101 of them Labour. Yet if the most striking feature of the 1997 intake into the House of Commons was the number of newly elected women, then the most striking feature of the backbench rebellions in that parliament was the lack of these women amongst the ranks of the rebels. They were less than half as likely to rebel against the party whip as the rest of t…
Votes at 16? The case against
Parliament: More Bleak House than Great Expectations
2003 could well become remembered as the year when backbench voting became both exciting and revealing. The prospect of military action against Iraq triggered the two largest backbench revolts by government MPs since the middle of the nineteenth century. Labour MPs also caused the government headaches on a range of domestic issues. Revolts over foundation hospitals led to the largest rebellion by government backbenchers against the second reading…
The Politics of Local Presence: Is there a Case for Descriptive Representation
The case for greater descriptive representation of groups such as women and ethnic minorities has become widely, though not wholly, accepted in much of the academic literature and in the ‘real world’ of politics in most advanced democracies. In the UK the goal of greater descriptive representation of women has often become framed as a zero-sum game against men, especially local men, with consequences for the descriptive representation of women. T…
A Coalition with Two Wobbly Wings: Backbench Dissent in the House of Commons
Conscience and Parliament
Abortion, Susan Mills and Sally Sheldon homosexuality, Melvyn D. Read and David Marsh war crimes, Gabriele Ganz divorce, Philip Cowley Sunday trading, Melvyn D. Read disability rights, Matthew Bailey and Kevin Shinkwin animal welfare, Robert Garner censorship, Martin Durham voting without a party?, Charles Pattie, Ron Johnston and Mark Stuart
Arise, Novice Leader! The Continuing Rise of the Career Politician in Britain
In late 2010 the leaders of the major British political parties were the most inexperienced of the post-war era. This short article discusses this development. It shows how unusual this is, comparing the leaders of 2010 to their post-war predecessors. It demonstrates that this development is unlikely to be some fluke, before considering the causes of the transformation, which it suggests can be attributed to two things: the changes in the electio…
What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment
There has been extensive research into the extent to which voters utilise short cuts based on gender and race stereotypes when evaluating candidates, but relatively little is known about how they respond to other background characteristics. We compare the impact of candidates' sex, religion, age, education, occupation and location/residence through a survey experiment in which respondents rate two candidates based on short biographies. We find sm…
Descriptive Representation and Political Trust: A Quasi-natural Experiment Utilising Ignorance
This note investigates the claim that descriptive representation can have symbolic benefits. Using data from Great Britain, it uses the opportunity provided by the ignorance of voters about their legislative institutions to examine the effect of different perceptions of the scale of group representation. It tests whether there is a relationship between estimates of the scale of women's political representation and political trust/satisfaction. It…
British General Election Of 2015
This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137366115. It has been reproduced with with permission of Palgrave Macmillan
Political science (30 works) · Law (29 works) · Politics (26 works) · Law (25 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Parliament (14 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (11 works) · Public Administration (10 works)