Is There A Participation Crisis In The UK
Is there a participation crisis in the UK?
Whether there is a participation crisis in the UK or not is one of the major questions surrounding UK politics in the present day. The ever shrinking overall voter turnout in UK general elections suggests we do have a problem. However, the recent referendum on Scottish Independence that saw 84% of the Scottish electorate vote including 16 year olds, begs to differ. There are many arguments for and against this question.
A reason for agreeing that there is a participation crisis in the UK is because there is an increasingly low voter turnout at general elections. In the 2005 general election voter turnout was only 61.4% rising slightly to 65.1% in 2010. This is a massive drop from the voter turnout percentages of previous general elections such as the 1974 election where turnout was 78.8%. This creates a crisis for governments because as voter turnout decreases the government becomes less and less representative of the UK public and therefore have less and less of a mandate to make change because only a small percentage of people voted.
On the other hand, studies show people are still getting involved and participating in politics but just through other means such as e- petitions as over 36,000 e-petitions have been created in the first year since they were introduced. People may also be more likely to get involved with politics by joining a pressure group as they can campaign for a particular issue that they sympathise with as they may not care about a lot of the other issues debated in Parliament. This suggests people still care about political issues they just choose to get involved in alternative ways and that there is actually not a participation crisis.
As well as a decreasing number of people voting in general elections there is a similarly decreasing number of people becoming members of political parties and this is another reason to agree that there is a participation crisis in the UK. In 2010, only 1% of the
Whether there is a participation crisis in the UK or not is one of the major questions surrounding UK politics in the present day. The ever shrinking overall voter turnout in UK general elections suggests we do have a problem. However, the recent referendum on Scottish Independence that saw 84% of the Scottish electorate vote including 16 year olds, begs to differ. There are many arguments for and against this question.
A reason for agreeing that there is a participation crisis in the UK is because there is an increasingly low voter turnout at general elections. In the 2005 general election voter turnout was only 61.4% rising slightly to 65.1% in 2010. This is a massive drop from the voter turnout percentages of previous general elections such as the 1974 election where turnout was 78.8%. This creates a crisis for governments because as voter turnout decreases the government becomes less and less representative of the UK public and therefore have less and less of a mandate to make change because only a small percentage of people voted.
On the other hand, studies show people are still getting involved and participating in politics but just through other means such as e- petitions as over 36,000 e-petitions have been created in the first year since they were introduced. People may also be more likely to get involved with politics by joining a pressure group as they can campaign for a particular issue that they sympathise with as they may not care about a lot of the other issues debated in Parliament. This suggests people still care about political issues they just choose to get involved in alternative ways and that there is actually not a participation crisis.
As well as a decreasing number of people voting in general elections there is a similarly decreasing number of people becoming members of political parties and this is another reason to agree that there is a participation crisis in the UK. In 2010, only 1% of the