Chapter 4 Web links to data sets

Chapter four: What people think and do about politics

  1. The British election study (BES)

The British election study websites offer data on elections held in Britain. The BES is globally one of the longest running election studies and is a great resource which analyses political attitudes and behaviours dating back 60 years. Surveys have been running immediately after every general election since 1964. They are a great non-partisan source of data on voter behaviour and elections.

https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/

  1. British social attitudes survey (BSA)

The British social attitudes survey asks around 3000 people for their opinion on living in Britain every year, including questions regarding what they think about the running of Britain. Since 1983, the BSA has been measuring and monitoring the development of people’s political attitudes. Each survey tells us a lot about public opinion.

https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/

  1. Ipsos-MORI

Ipsos MORI is at the apex of data on public opinion, presenting reliable information in a political time of turbulence. Their online polls are well known and are useful in monitoring how opinion changes along demographics such as age, class and gender for example. This analysis is key in explaining polarisation and a tendency of turbulence as described in chapter four.

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk

  1. Data on electoral registration

This data from the Office for National Statistics offers all data related to electoral registration in the UK. Of particular interest is the data set titled ‘Electoral statistics for the UK’. Have a brief browse of this data and see which groups are not registered to vote. What does this mean for democracy?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/datalist

  1. Turnout at elections

Elections are key to upholding democracy as it enables citizens to vote for their representatives. If citizens are not exercising this opportunity to vote then there’s a problem. This 2021 report offers the latest data on turnout. Pay close attention to who exactly are the groups not voting.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8060/CBP-8060.pdf

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