2024 - A Year of Elections
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058231218316 |
| Author | Peter Geoghegan |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
DECEMBER 2023•POLITICAL INSIGHT3
2024 – A Year
of Elections
These are uncertain times. The war
in Ukraine is entering another long
winter. Hamas’s horric attack on 7
October was followed by a massive
Israeli retaliation in Gaza that – at the time of
writing – risks sparking a regional conict, or
even worse.
There is little sign that 2024 will provide
much respite. Indeed, we know for certain
that next year will add at least one major
source of turbulence: a packed election
calendar.
From Taiwan in January to the United
States in November, there will be more than
40 national elections next year. European
Parliament elections are due in June and
there’s a raft of regional and sub-national
contests, too.
There will likely be even more elections:
while in theory Rishi Sunak could wait until
January 2025 to call a UK election, almost
every pundit is predicting an election next
year. (Although few agree on exactly when!)
In this issue, we have not one but two
cover features, both based on this year’s
Political Studies Association annual lecture
(which I was honoured to chair).
Kate Dommett examines an area that
often grabs the headlines – the threat of
AI during elections – and argues that we
should resist the temptation for technological
sensationalism. Instead, researchers should
focus on capturing the real dynamics of the
modern election campaign – which happen
both on the ground and online.
Sir John Curtice asks whether – after the
Brexit election of 2019 – British politics is
returning to ‘normality’. Drawing on polling
data, he nds that while Brexit has largely fallen
o the political agenda, the impact Brexit had
on voting patterns is not about to disappear.
Polls predict that Labour is on course to
win the next election. But what would a
victory for Keir Starmer mean for the Labour
Left? Once so powerful under Jeremy Corbyn,
Labour’s anti-capitalist wing nds itself
marginalised and struggling to be heard,
write Colm Murphy and Ale Steer.
One subject that is already emerging as an
election issue is immigration, and particularly
asylum. In the regular Last Word slot, Maya
Goodfellow argues that the Conservative
government’s hardline approach is both
political strategy and political ideology.
One question that will not be on the
ballot paper but which many voters are
exercised by is whether Britain’s political
system t for purpose. In a piece that won
the PSA/
Financial Times
student essay
competition, Isaac Stark nds that the
Westminster system is deeply awed and in
need of widespread reform.
Certainly British politics has a trust
issue – although it’s by no means the only
democracy struggling with declining trust
in politics. Against this backdrop, James
Weinberg reports on his research into how
politicians perceive trust in them, and nds
that on an individual level many politicians
don’t realise the scale of the trust problem.
In recent months, the potential role
of Articial Intelligence in political
campaigning has attracted signicant
attention. But far fewer column inches have
been dedicated to a much more pressing
issue – how AI might aect the actual
running of elections themselves. Muiris
MacCarthaigh investigates, and nds some
reasons to be wary.
Elsewhere, Paul Dixon looks back at the
Northern Irish peace process in the 1990s to
ask what a negotiated peace settlement in
Ukraine might look like, and how it could be
achieved, and Ben Williams traces the political
history of Britain’s National Health Service as
it celebrates its 75th birthday and nds that
dicult policy choices lie ahead, whoever is
in power.
Beyond global conicts, 2023 has been a
seismic political year for other unfortunate
reasons. It was the hottest summer on
record with soaring temperatures and major
disasters linked to climate change. But, as
Elizabeth Bomberg argues in her review of
the year in climate action, there are still some
grounds for political optimism.
In early 2023, Jacinda Ardern and Nicola
Sturgeon both resigned unexpectedly. Shan-
Jan Sarah Liu argues that the shock which
greeted their departures reects a political
world in which female leaders are often
held to dierent standards than their male
counterparts.
Elsewhere, Alan S. Kahan argues that
liberals are too often at a loss for what to
say to counter populist alienation. Tracing
the development of liberal thought over
the past three centuries, he contends that
today’s liberals need to rediscover the moral
conviction of their predecessors.
Finally, in the regular In Focus slot,
Benjamin D. Hennig and Danny Dorling
examine the Nordic model of capitalism, and
nd that its high levels of income equality can
be found across a broad swathe of Europe –
but not the UK.
Next year will be lled with huge political
moments. Whatever happens,
Political
Insight
will be there, bringing you expert
research, analysis and commentary on the
issues that matter.
Peter Geoghegan
Editor
Political Insight December 2023 BU.indd 3Political Insight December 2023 BU.indd 310/11/2023 11:4010/11/2023 11:40
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