Psychology
How do voters develop their political party identification?
How do voters develop their political party identification?
Iclearly remember the 1996 election, not only because it was the focus of my doctorate – why people vote the way they do in our first MMP election – but also because it was my birthday. This means at least two things: I am getting old, and MMP turns 21 this year. Happy birthday, MMP.
In the run-up to the 96 election, there was a period of political upheaval unlike any never seen before – or since. We went from having two, maybe three “proper” parties that we could reasonably vote for and expect to see represented in Parliament to 26 on the ballot paper. Six were successful in the game of musical chairs that followed. Only two (Labour and National) had existed five years before.
This proliferation of parties was a big deal. On one hand, it allowed us to pick a party, any party, whose platform appealed to us, rather than relying on broad-brush manifestos in which Labour and National jostled for the biggest slice on either side of the political centre. But on the other hand, it cut us adrift from our traditional political identities. How could you identify with a party that didn’t exist three years earlier?
In the political science of voting, an important predictive (and explanatory) concept is “party identification”. In the US, a traditional poll question was along the lines of “Do you think of yourself as a Democrat, a Republican or an independent?” This is a subtly different way of asking, “Who are you going to vote for?”
Party identification became an important concept in the 1948 US election, when it was used by social psychologist Angus Campbell and colleagues. That year, the new party identification question was the only poll question that led to a prediction of Harry Truman’s upset victory. Incidentally, Campbell is my academic greatgrandfather, having supervised my supervisor’s supervisor.
Party identification builds up through our experience. As a youngster, I remember the picture of National leader Rob Muldoon on the back of the toilet door and a pot of darts next to the loo paper. I also recall overhearing my parents and their friends complaining over their fondue about Labour’s Bill Rowling. And then there was watching as uni fees quadrupled in the final year of the fourth Labour Government … Okay, that last one was me. Thanks, Phil Goff.
Because party identification develops over a longish period, it’s pretty stable, and that’s why it’s important at election time – it’s the basis of that “feeling” about who to vote for, the starting point of the journey from feeling to voting. It used to be said that people voted in line with their party identification more than 80% of the time.
This is one reason 1996 was important. All bets were off and voting was officially deregulated.
But those days are long past.
There will be young people voting in this election who weren’t born until almost three years after MMP was first used. They’ve had time to build an identification with Act or the Greens as well as National and Labour. They’ve never known a time when New Zealand First and United Future weren’t part of the political landscape.
One reason for shifting to MMP was to arrest our sliding turnout rate, but it has continued to decline.
Unfortunately, they’re also less likely to vote. One reason for shifting to MMP was to arrest our sliding turnout rate, but it has continued to decline. It is one of the perverse consequences of coalition politics that few people get exactly the Government they want. There are increasingly greater swathes of the public who don’t think politicians represent them, so by not voting, they’re allowing politicians to ignore them.
TVNZ recently ran a piece on whether parents should tell their kids who to vote for, and the answer is kind of obvious. Don’t tell them who to vote for – research says that backfires as often as not – but do tell them to vote.