UK Parties and voters dissertation:

[Serenity Now]

So, I Have 6 weeks to write an 8,000 word disseration on the British party system and voting behaviour. A lot of the stuff it covers is the kind of thing that is often discussed on this thread.

Obviously, because of plaigarism and what-not I cannot get too much outside help, but I was wondering if anyone could suggest certain concepts I should consider approaching? This can help me to work out a title.

I'm especially interested in talking about voting behaviour and demographics.

Thanks

[afleitch]

Class; plain and simple. It affects, as you know, both party formation and policy and voting behaviour. But also class perception as opposed to financial reality is also important, especially in Scotland. I've done an essay on the very same. I'll see if I can get you a few book titles to check out.

EDIT: Having socialist lecturers called for a lot of class based discussion And I tend to agree with them

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What Andrew said, but it might also be worth looking into is the theories of class dealignment that were popular in the '80's (Ivor Crewe wrote a lot on it IIRC) but which have been, largely, discredited. Or more to the point; what the flaws (and there were a lot) in those theories were.

Thinking about things in general, you should be careful about relying too heavily on surveys, polls and the like; the sample sizes are usually too small, absurdly so in some cases (like a whole 58 voters in a survey on occupation and voting, for example).

Good luck, btw.