How might reform of the political system appeal to discontented citizens?
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117736189 |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117736189
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(2) 263 –284
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148117736189
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How might reform of the
political system appeal to
discontented citizens?
Ben Seyd1, John Curtice2
and Jonathan Rose3
Abstract
In Britain, levels of political trust have declined, stimulating policy makers to explore ways of
appealing to discontented citizens. One such initiative involves reform of the political system.
Yet, this raises the question of which types of political reform are likely to appeal to discontented
citizens. Existing studies have examined how individuals respond to political reforms, yet these
studies only consider a limited range of institutional changes. Scholars and policy makers thus
know little about the popular appeal of a wider set of institutional reforms. Taking advantage of
proposals for political reform in Britain, this article considers public reactions to a wide range of
institutional changes. Using data from the 2011 British Social Attitudes survey, we find that direct
democratic reforms are not the only changes that appeal to discontented citizens. Instead, policy
makers may also appeal to the distrustful via reforms that allow voters more control over their
political representatives.
Keywords
direct democracy, institutional reform, political discontent, political trust
One of the most striking features of contemporary British politics is the apparent decline
in the public’s regard for politicians and political institutions. Numerous surveys have
pointed to the lower levels of political trust among citizens today compared with three or
four decades ago (Jennings et al., 2016; Phillips and Simpson, 2015; Stoker, 2017: 35–
41). Low levels of political trust are deemed to have significant effects, including the
stimulation of popular support for ‘outsider’ or ‘protest’ parties such as the UK
Independence Party (Ford and Goodwin, 2014: 187–200; Jennings et al., 2016). Not sur-
prisingly, given these effects, mainstream politicians and commentators are searching for
ways to appeal to disaffected citizens in the hope of boosting levels of trust. One such
1School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
2School of Government & Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
3Department of Politics and Public Policy, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Corresponding author:
Ben Seyd, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NX, UK.
Email: B.J.Seyd@kent.ac.uk
736189BPI0010.1177/1369148117736189The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsSeyd et al.
research-article2017
Original Article
264 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(2)
trust-building initiative involves reform of the political system. Since 1997, Britain’s
political architecture has undergone fundamental reform, often with the goal of improv-
ing the way citizens view, and engage with, the political system (King, 2009: ch. 4). In
one of the most recent manifestations of this development, the Conservative–Liberal
Democrat Coalition Government that came to office in 2010 suggested that Britain’s
political system was ‘broken’ and required ‘fundamental political reform’ to put it on a
more healthy footing (HM Government, 2010: 26).
The question implicitly raised by the Coalition pledge is whether political reform is
likely to engage discontented citizens, and if so whether certain types of reform are likely
to be more successful than others. That levels of political trust among British citizens
have continued to decline even after the panoply of constitutional changes introduced by
successive governments since 1997 (Curtice and Seyd, 2012) suggests either that institu-
tional reform by itself may be an ineffective way of engaging citizens (Bowler and
Donovan, 2013), or that only certain types of institutional reform—going beyond those
already introduced in Britain—are likely to engage them. This article is designed to
explore the second of these theses. Rather than exploring whether existing institutional
changes have re-connected citizens with their political rulers, we seek to identify whether
different types of institutional change have the potential to appeal to distrustful citizens,
and if so which among these types hold an especially strong appeal.
It is noteworthy that the ‘Programme for Government’ signed by the Coalition parties
in 2010 proposed a variety of political reforms, some of which fell within the standard
‘representative’ model, but many of which anticipated a very different form of politics.
Falling within the representative category were proposals to change the voting system for
national elections via a referendum, and to replace the appointed House of Lords with a
predominantly elected second chamber. New and powerful political offices were also
proposed at the local level, in the form of mayors and police commissioners, who would
be directly elected and thus accountable to local people. Yet some of the Coalition’s pro-
posed reforms anticipated a form of politics going well beyond the traditional representa-
tive relationship between citizens and politicians. Into this category fell proposals
allowing citizens to initiate referendums at the local level and giving voters greater con-
trol over party representatives, through provisions for the recall of MPs and for open
primaries to select parties’ election candidates. The proposed political reforms thus
extended well beyond minor tweaks to the existing representative model. Instead, they
encompassed extending the electoral principle to new offices (in the form of mayors and
police commissioners), giving voters greater say in policy decisions (via referendums),
and allowing voters greater rights to select party candidates (through open primaries) and
to sanction existing MPs (through legislator recall).
We should note straightaway that most of these latter proposals were not introduced.
Of the reforms just identified, the only ones to be implemented were the proposals for
directly elected mayors and police commissioners and, to a limited degree, for the recall
of MPs. Given this result, we are unable to explore the effects of actually implementing
different types of political reform. Nonetheless, we can explore what appeal these reforms
have for citizens, and in particular for citizens who distrust the existing political system.
To date, the empirical literature provides only limited evidence about how citizens
evaluate different types of political reform. This gap in our knowledge is not surprising,
since only rarely do politicians propose radical changes to the operation of national politi-
cal systems. Yet as a result of the far-reaching changes proposed in Britain in 2010, along
with their public discussion and evaluation, we are better placed to evaluate how citizens
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