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Download fileThe United Kingdom 2017 election: polarisation in a split issue space
journal contribution
posted on 2019-03-06, 13:51 authored by Cristian VaccariCristian Vaccari, Kaat Smets, Oliver HeathAfter decades in which party competition was fought in the centre ground, the 2017 UK General Election witnessed a return to more conflictual politics. This article assesses public support for the electoral strategies of the main parties and examines the extent to which the issues the parties campaigned on resonated with their own supporters, as well as with the wider public. Drawing on the issue-yield framework, the article shows that the Conservative campaign – generally considered to be badly run – did not focus on issues that would fully exploit the opportunities for expanding support that were open to the party. Labour, by contrast, played a much better hand. While taking a clear left-wing stance on many policies that were popular with its constituency, the party also skilfully emphasised valence issues that Labour is often seen as more credible on, such as healthcare and education.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Published in
West European PoliticsVolume
43Issue
3Pages
587 - 609Citation
VACCARI, C., SMETS, K. and HEATH, O., 2019. The United Kingdom 2017 election: polarisation in a split issue space. West European Politics, 43 (3), pp.587-609.Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Rights holder
© Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupPublisher statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in West European Politics on 1 October 2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01402382.2019.1655961.Acceptance date
2019-02-18Publication date
2019-10-01Copyright date
2019ISSN
1743-9655eISSN
0140-2382Language
- en