Last Word Can Political Parties be Reformed?
| Author | Luke Temple,Kate Dommett |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905818796579 |
40 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2018
Last Word
Can Political Parties
be Reformed?
Opinion polls rarely paint a positive
picture of politics. Politicians
and Westminster are frequently
bemoaned as being self-serving,
elitist and unresponsive. This has led to
proposals for political reform – such as those
outlined in the Power Report in 2004 (and its
follow up in 2010) – which focus in particular
on widening and deepening participation.
However, recent research we conducted
suggests that this kind of polling data might
not be the best basis for designing reform of
our political system.
Take political parties. Parties as institutions
are viewed very negatively. Indeed, our own
survey found that whilst 47 per cent of people
are dissatised with democracy, nearly 70 per
cent are unhappy with parties. People believe
parties listen to self-interested groups rather
than the wider public, bicker constantly, and
chase votes at the expense of longer-term
thinking.
Findings like these have led analysts to
conclude that parties need reforming. Indeed,
there have been many initiatives responding to
these trends: parties have created supporters’
networks, experimented with open primaries,
and emphasised their democratic credentials
in eorts to (re)engage the public and improve
their image. The logic of these responses
is that people’s attitudes and participation
can be improved by changes to how parties
work, specically focusing on the way citizens
engage. But the assumption made here is far
from secure – whilst polling data can be used
to generate theories explaining behaviour,
many of the frequently asked questions give
little insight into what people see to be wrong
with the system and, importantly, what kind of
change they desire and see to be possible.
This latter question is particularly important,
as whilst it is often assumed that parties can
be reformed, for many people this is not a
given. Asking our survey respondents about
party reform, we found that 25 per cent called
for minor change and 46 per cent for major
reform to parties, but that a quarter agreed that
‘reforming parties is pointless, they can’t be
made to work’. For a considerable proportion
of people, reform is therefore unlikely to bring
about changed views and so parties face a
decidedly uphill battle.
For those who do think reform is viable, there
is little guidance from most survey questions
about what the public want from parties, and
whether changes would improve public views.
Political parties are consistently viewed negatively by the public. But
new research finds that improving the image of party politics is an
uphill task. Kate Dommett and Luke Temple report.
To gather more data, our survey used question
formulations such as trade-os, and we also
conducted deliberative workshops to better
understand people’s views of parties. We found,
as might be expected, that public opinion is
something of a quagmire of contradictory
expectations.
Increasing participation is an issue that
features in many reform agendas. But when
it comes to participation, our study found
results that are likely frustrating for parties: the
public in general don’t want to get involved
in political parties but many do believe there
should be opportunities to get involved. For
all the options we provided – such as being
a member, supporting the party online,
donating, campaigning, etc – our survey
suggested 60-74 per cent had not done it and
would not even consider it.
A counter-argument might be that people
would get involved if they thought it would
make any dierence. Our data does shows
that 70 per cent agree with the idea that when
people like them get involved in parties they
should have an impact on what the party
does, whilst many were sceptical that in reality
people do have any inuence. So perceptions
of ecacy are important, but we aren’t able
to demonstrate if improved perceptions of
ecacy would in fact boost engagement.
And there is another issue to consider here
– our data suggests that, more broadly, the
general public are actually quite sceptical of
party members. Of our survey respondents, 31
per cent already think parties already listen to
their members enough, and 36 per cent think
parties listen too much to their members.
Our survey and workshop data suggest that
perhaps the biggest frustration for the general
public is parties being seen to ignore the wider
public at the expense of self-interested groups,
and this includes party members. Paradoxically
then, whilst investing energy in opening up a
party might be seen to be a positive step, many
people probably won’t take it. Indeed, it might
well be that a party with an increasing activist
base becomes seen as self-serving in the eyes
of the general public.
Dr Kate Dommett and Dr Luke Temple teach
at the Department for Politics, University
of Sheeld. They are currently working on
the project ‘Renewing Party Politics’ and
conduct research on political parties, political
engagement and democratic politics.
80
60
40
20
0
Very or fairly
satisfied
Fairly or very
dissatisfied
Don’t know
21
41 47
69
10 12
Satisfaction with the way
that political parties/
democracy work in the UK
● Parties
● Democracy
Source: ESRC Renewing
Party Politics Project /
YouGov, n=1,497
PI September 2018.indd 40 27/07/2018 15:13
To continue reading
Request your trial